Hypothetical Policy Pack: Green New Deal & Industry 4.0

Check it out, it’s another set of hypothetical policies, this one about energy, automation, and the future of work.

Energy Crisis

  • Energy Supply Simulation (I stole this from a mod) - The amount of energy produced by your nation. (Increased by Energy Efficiency, Microgeneration Grants, Clean Energy Subsidies, Mandatory Microgeneration, Nuclear Fission and Oil Subsidies. Reduced by Ban Coal, Pollution Controls, Technology, Industrial Automation, Electronic Car Transition etc)

  • Blackouts Situation (This was in the mod too) - The lack of energy in your country has resulted in industrial and domestic power outages, plummeting quality of life and paralysing the economy. (Caused by Low Energy Supply, contributes to Apocalypse Situation)

  • International Offshore Microgeneration Project - Offshore flotillas of solar panels, wind turbines and wave generators installed in oceans. (Increases Energy Supply and Foreign Relations)

  • Hydropower Project The construction and upkeep of hydropower dams across the country (Increases Energy Supply. Reduces Environment at high levels)

  • Screen Darkening Campaign - A small advertising measure promoting the use of low brightness settings, dark themes, and sunset saturation software on consumer and workplace screens, limiting damage to user’s eyes and Circadian rhythm. (Increases Energy Efficiency with a tiny boost to health)

Automation Crisis
The expansion of this concept would require a higher ceiling to the Industrial Automation Simulation, allowing a larger contribution to Productivity which though that would require a long and costly lead time resembling the conversion of your society into one with heavily automated labour.

  • Civil AI Systems - Financing the adoption of AI and automated systems in government and public services (Increases Industrial Automation with a bump to Political Capital but also Nefarious AI and Cyberwarfare. Reduces Beaurocracy, Tax Evasion & Corruption)

  • Nefarious AI Situation - The unregulated expansion of AI systems has led to various misinformation programs, autohackers, and unreliable industrial systems. (Increases Fake News, Internet Crime, Cyberwarfare, and Luddite Riots and reduces GDP)

  • Ethical AI Standards - The standards by which you hold developers constructing Industrial Automation systems. Harsh measures stifle growth, but half measures could risk the proliferation of hazardous systems. (Reduces Industrial Automation, but prevents AI Catastophe Events, and Nefarious AI)

Utopian Employment

  • Four Day Work Week - A mandate rendering Friday a third weekend day (Reduces Working Week. Pleases Trade Unionists)

  • Contract Labour Regulation - Regulations and stimulus for contractual work and short term positions, stimulating the growth of gainful short-term employment, paid projects, and commission labour. (At low levels causes Gig Economy, at high levels destroys it. Decreases Unemployment, increases Self Employed Happiness & Membership)

  • Machine-Assisting Laws - Standardisation and incentives for introducing machine-assisting automation technology, aiming to speed up the work people can do without replacing them with the system. (Increases Industrial Automation, decreases Unemployment with a small approval bump from Trade Unionists.)

  • Quarternary Education Program - An initiative encouraging graduates to undertake docterates and assume tenured positions, normalising retaining young people in academia until the age of 25, nurturing scientific and artistic expertise. (Reduces Unemployment, increases Education & Culture and destroys the skills shortage(which ought to become stronger with high Technology Advantage, both Space Programs, Carbon Capture, and Climate Prevention.))

  • Renaissance Society Situation - In a society where people don’t need to work, they tend to follow ambitious personal projects, many of which create things for the world around them, though not all are profitable or complimentary to the economy. (Caused by high Industrial Automation, Education, Human Development and Middle-Earner and Liberal membership as well as low Work Week. Makes a big reduction in Unemployment and a small one in Productivity. Increases Egalitarian Society, Culture, Democracy, and Everyone Approval)

6 Likes

I like all these ideas, although, I’m not sure about Renaissance Society reducing unemployment, from what you described it would seem to me that it’s either unrelated to employment, moreso free time, or a consequence of unemployment (free time, supplemented by welfare). I’d suggest cutting the relationship it has with unemployment.

Additionally free time can also mean unhappiness from a lack of purpose for more of the day, it could maybe then be argued for an increase in parent membership, or an increase in narcotics and smoking and drinking, as a pass time.

2 Likes

Yes, completely fair. A lot of people would take that time for themselves, though considering most passions of the modern world can be monetised, if only people had the time, the option exists to make a career out of whatever you pursue, whether that’s something so explicitly helpful as carpentry, or something so abstract as running a popular dog Instagram that runs micromarketed promotions.

But of course not everyone with free time would (or should) use it for a self-started self-employed business. It would absolutely lead to an increase in the vices. The same thing happened to all noble classes throughout time. Hedonism is a highly precedented phenomenon. That said, these eras in question were often considered renaissances.

Rationalism didn’t just happen, it started because a lot of well-educated people were free to spend a lifetime thinking about stuff with no immediate or guaranteed goal. In a world as developed as ours, those thinkers may well have found themselves being middle-managers or executives without the time for such things.

There’s a reason we turned away from the cruelties of burdening all labour onto an underclass, but with heavy automation, one could propose we could have our cake and eat it. (But then of course, how would you power such a state - hence the energy crisis angle.)

4 Likes

Jumping back in to refer to substantiate this point - a low working week is actually better for productivity: