Let's talk about living standards

[LeonOfOddecca]

There is something about the way living standards are handled which irks me. Here is a link to the wiki so that we're all up to speed on how they work. What irks me is this:

The happiness bonus that rulers receive is largely (though not always) a function of how much consumer goods is consumed by other classes, rather than how much consumer goods they themselves consume. For example, under 'decent conditions' rulers consume 1, specialists consume 0.5 and workers consume 0.25, and rulers have +10 happiness; under 'stratified economy' rulers consume 1, specialists consume 0.5 and workers consume 0.1, but rulers have +15 happiness. It's as if what the rulers care about is how little the working class gets, not how much the ruling class get.

What seems to be going on is that the devs decided that a multiplier of 1 is some default value for maximal happiness under a particular living condition, and then everything else is calculated against that baseline. It's a case of mathematical convenience trumping intuition.

I am not suggesting that happiness should always be a function of the absolute value of consumer goods you consume. Social scientists have shown that this is not the case, and that people are often unhappy if they have less than others, regardless of how much they have in absolute terms. However, as far as I'm aware the converse is not true; that is, people are not more happy when others have less than them.

 

[nanoboy]

Oh, but that is human (and authoritarian alien) nature. People with authoritarian world views want to live in a society wherein they're better than others. The net worth of a medieval knight would be that of a normal family today, but they felt awesome about how they were so much better than the serfs.

 

[Gratak]

There is something about the way living standards are handled which irks me. Here is a link to the wiki so that we're all up to speed on how they work. What irks me is this:

The happiness bonus that rulers receive is largely (though not always) a function of how much consumer goods is consumed by other classes, rather than how much consumer goods they themselves consume. For example, under 'decent conditions' rulers consume 1, specialists consume 0.5 and workers consume 0.25, and rulers have +10 happiness; under 'stratified economy' rulers consume 1, specialists consume 0.5 and workers consume 0.1, but rulers have +15 happiness. It's as if what the rulers care about is how little the working class gets, not how much the ruling class get.

What seems to be going on is that the devs decided that a multiplier of 1 is some default value for maximal happiness under a particular living condition, and then everything else is calculated against that baseline. It's a case of mathematical convenience trumping intuition.

I am not suggesting that happiness should always be a function of the absolute value of consumer goods you consume. Social scientists have shown that this is not the case, and that people are often unhappy if they have less than others, regardless of how much they have in absolute terms. However, as far as I'm aware the converse is not true; that is, people are not more happy when others have less than them.

The system is actually more complex than you make it seem. Those happiness bonuses are not the only ones. Authoritarian leader pops will be VERY unhappy when you go away from a stratified economy (-20% faction happiness instead of +20% faction happiness). The tiny 5-10% increase the get does not really matter then...

Egalitarian leader pops on the other hand will be way happier in high living standards and I would claim that that is realistic. They would be having a bad concious all the time while living in their luxurious life in a stratified economy.

 

[Typee]

There is something about the way living standards are handled which irks me. Here is a link to the wiki so that we're all up to speed on how they work. What irks me is this:

The happiness bonus that rulers receive is largely (though not always) a function of how much consumer goods is consumed by other classes, rather than how much consumer goods they themselves consume. For example, under 'decent conditions' rulers consume 1, specialists consume 0.5 and workers consume 0.25, and rulers have +10 happiness; under 'stratified economy' rulers consume 1, specialists consume 0.5 and workers consume 0.1, but rulers have +15 happiness. It's as if what the rulers care about is how little the working class gets, not how much the ruling class get.

What seems to be going on is that the devs decided that a multiplier of 1 is some default value for maximal happiness under a particular living condition, and then everything else is calculated against that baseline. It's a case of mathematical convenience trumping intuition.

I am not suggesting that happiness should always be a function of the absolute value of consumer goods you consume. Social scientists have shown that this is not the case, and that people are often unhappy if they have less than others, regardless of how much they have in absolute terms. However, as far as I'm aware the converse is not true; that is, people are not more happy when others have less than them.

It matters a lot.
In a society where a ruler earns 1 and workers 0.1, a ruler can employ several servants for his personal convenience.
In a society where a a worker earns 0.25, it's gonna be much harder.
This happens in the world right now. A MD or engineer in the West is gonna enjoy a reasonable middle-class lifestyle. A MD or engineer in SEA is gonna have a maid to clean his house, a cook to prepare his food and probably someone to take care of his kids too.

 

[Kakotheres]

The net worth of a medieval knight would be that of a normal family today, but they felt awesome about how they were so much better than the serfs.

This is fundamentally untrue and is a critical misunderstanding of how inflation and technological progress works. It's an understandable mistake to make, though! Certainly the gross product of each individual can be considered to have greatly increased, but this is sort of a trap to think about. Purchasing Power is the more important measure, and this obviously radically different between your examples.

Land-owning gentry could be expected to be the sole 'employer' of multiple villages, control local taxes and industry and survive solely on the product of their land. It cannot be understated just how different the economy was between the collapse of the Roman Empire and the Industrial Revolution than it is today (if you're charitable the economic changes might be backdated further to the Peace of Westphalia, but certainly no further than that). The gentry, to a greater or lesser extent depending where you are in Europe, cannot be thought of as the same as particularly wealthy individuals today, like Bezos for example. The equivalent net worth of the gentry would be in the low trillions, with Kings and Emperors pushing the medium to high trillions.

The wars post the beginning of the Industrial Revolution pulled a lot of this wealth out, from the gentry to the warchests of the state government and the newly formed 'corporation'. In addition, the emergence of the possibility of a high amount of product from a dense property, from mass manufacture, led to a middle class and the nouveau riche. The war bonds, drawing of taxes and destruction of capital in World Wars 1 and 2 demolished the last instances of the old wealth and now the gentry and their descendants are rich only in ways that normally considered i.e. billions at most.

It matters a lot.
In a society where a ruler earns 1 and workers 0.1, a ruler can employ several servants for his personal convenience.
In a society where a a worker earns 0.25, it's gonna be much harder.
This happens in the world right now. A MD or engineer in the West is gonna enjoy a reasonable middle-class lifestyle. A MD or engineer in SEA is gonna have a maid to clean his house, a cook to prepare his food and probably someone to take care of his kids too.

This is vastly more accurate. While equivalent output would be similar, purchasing power is radically different between societies. Stellaris's Authoritarian/Egalitarian measures aren't about raw output, but equivalent power. 'Consumer Goods' is a fudge (an appropriate fudge), to ignore the actual measurable quality of life arguments and work directly off purchasing or political power.

Essentially Authoritarian allows you to model 'Brave New World' style of authoritarian societies, where the average worker or member of society has huge amounts of consumption, and maybe some veneer of political power, but in actuality they have equivalently nothing. It also allows you to model the more popular starvation hellscape dictatorship.

Having said all of this, I agree to with the OP about the problem, but not the reasons why. You can buy Consumer Goods from Market; this effectively pars off the purchasing power of pops between Empires, unfortunately destroying what I believe is the intended modelling.

I think consumer good quality should be taken into account. A repeatable tech that increases your consumer good production but also multiplies your pops consumption of the same would be a stop gap solution, but there's probably something more elegant that I'm missing.

 

[RabbaDooDabba]

I would like to have a living standard that can create hedonists, just shove every menial tasks and labour to slaves/automation.
At first I thought Chemical Bliss would be an option but sadly even under it unemployed pops still have a happiness malus :\

What is Chemical Bliss even good for ?

 

[The Boz]

Someone tried to convince me it's for biotrophies.
Not buying it. Dead tech, IMO.

 

[beckermt]

I would like to have a living standard that can create hedonists, just shove every menial tasks and labour to slaves/automation.
At first I thought Chemical Bliss would be an option but sadly even under it unemployed pops still have a happiness malus :\

What is Chemical Bliss even good for ?

Temporary stopgap for angry, recently-conquered Pops?

 

[RabbaDooDabba]

Temporary stopgap for angry, recently-conquered Pops?

Just for pacifying unruly populations ? I find that a bit meager to be honest, the only other use I could see would be on fortress worlds filled with battle thralls.

 

[Typee]

Just for pacifying unruly populations ? I find that a bit meager to be honest, the only other use I could see would be on fortress worlds filled with battle thralls.

It kinda matters. When you conquer and start purging a planet as purifiers, I do believe the stability malus applies to the resources produced by the population cleansing. Chemical bliss should help with that, but I never tried it.

 

[The Boz]

Temporary stopgap for angry, recently-conquered Pops?

Wouldn't it work better as a planetary decision, then, and not a species-wide mandate?

 

[AlanC9]

I think consumer good quality should be taken into account. A repeatable tech that increases your consumer good production but also multiplies your pops consumption of the same would be a stop gap solution, but there's probably something more elegant that I'm missing.

The tech would increase pop happiness, right? If it's a wash there's no reason to research it.

 

[Rios_]

{context, chemical bliss population living standard}
Wouldn't it work better as a planetary decision, then, and not a species-wide mandate?

My preferred way would be an unlockable policy like capacity boosters, if a pop falls below 50% happiness it gains happiness to bring it back up to 50%, but suffers increasing reduction in production for each point (so rather then the planet losing some stability and so revolt risk, you just lose the production value from it). Choices between it being prohibited (spiritualists prefer), available to only the ruling class or working class (authoritarians prefer), or available to everyone (egalitarians prefer) (maybe swap egal and spirit around, don't know which would worth best thematically, is the drug use mandatory or not, do stellaris spiritualists have DARE programs). Gives you the same sort of use functions as the current version, but no micro.

 

[beckermt]

Wouldn't it work better as a planetary decision, then, and not a species-wide mandate?

Yes.

 

[Kakotheres]

The tech would increase pop happiness, right? If it's a wash there's no reason to research it.

It's intended to give you more market power in consumer goods than other empires, while keeping your consumption pretty much the same.

It's not really a good solution, but I can't really think of others.

 

[Secret Master]

With the current mechanics, does chemical bliss affect the amenities or naval cap output from clerks, entertainers, and soldiers?

I was thinking that you could have designated species for these roles and bliss them up without affecting their output.

 

[Derp]

i was hoping this thread was about the severe imbalance between living standards

 

[Ashantai]

And just a reminder, this is not the place for a discussion about real living standards or situations.

 

[Pointyearedgit]

With the current mechanics, does chemical bliss affect the amenities or naval cap output from clerks, entertainers, and soldiers?

I was thinking that you could have designated species for these roles and bliss them up without affecting their output.

AFAIK, the only effects are from traits for trade value and amenities from clerks and entertainers. And you will get the malus for the unity on entertainers.

However, if you are using slaves for these jobs, you can basically ignore their happiness because they have (basically) no PP. If you are not doing this, why not just use utopian abundance?

Even the battle thralls argument is a bit silly to me, as you can enact martial law if stability is truly a problem there.

 

[Secret Master]

However, if you are using slaves for these jobs, you can basically ignore their happiness because they have (basically) no PP. If you are not doing this, why not just use utopian abundance?

It's been awhile, but if memory serves, I can use chemical bliss when slavery isn't a legal option.

I was thinking that an empire that can't (or won't) enslave entire species might instead chemical bliss a species and put it on those jobs, ignoring the unity hit. Xenophile authoritarians can't enslave a species (I checked) even though they can do other things.