The next morning, Fu Chen got up early as usual.
He was discussing a new proposal with Li Renshu.
"We need a medical fund for rescue expenses when casualties occur after each game.
"Each medical kit costs 499. Although we can’t determine the Gallery’s opening intervals or exact number of participants each time, I think keeping at least 6 medical kits on hand is very necessary.
"Mainly to deal with some extreme emergencies.
"More than that isn’t necessary, because medical kits contain various medicines. Different medicines from one medical kit can be used simultaneously by different players.
"Or we could just take this money directly from the community’s basic protection fund.
"But definitely only injured people could apply for this money."
Li Renshu thought for a moment, "In that case, someone still needs to do the review and management. We can’t vote on it every time we need to use it.
Fu Chen considered, "Really? Hmm... that makes sense too. Let me think about it more."
Li Renshu continued, "Speaking of proposals, I actually have two ideas for optimizing proposals.
"The first is about collecting the community basic protection fund. I’ve thought about it for a long time and think it’s necessary to set a threshold.
"When we discussed this problem before, since we had only participated in one game, the data wasn’t clear, and time was quite urgent with less than an hour for discussion, so the protection fund collection was still a bit too one-size-fits-all.
"Everyone pays 5%, which seems fair, but for people who earn relatively little visa time from games, their living burden hasn’t been significantly reduced.
"So I’m wondering if we should set a threshold, where those below the threshold don’t need to pay this 5% protection fund.
"For this threshold, I personally think 20,000 is appropriate.
"The second idea is about the specific application of the community basic protection fund.
"Our previous 5% collection actually has a lot of surplus. If everything goes smoothly without any special emergencies, this community basic protection fund will definitely accumulate more and more.
"How to handle this excess money is also a problem.
"I think: first, it could become an interest-free loan pool.
"If someone’s visa time is really about to run out, they could borrow some visa time from this pool for emergencies, at least helping them last until the next game opens.
"Of course, this borrowing is limited to once, and the amount would also be set at 20,000 minutes of visa time. For everyone, this provides one more margin for error..."
While the two chatted, other players came downstairs one after another for breakfast.
Su Xiucen also sat over with her meal tray, "Are you talking about welfare?"
Li Renshu nodded, "Yes, Aunt Su. Do you have any thoughts?"
Su Xiucen looked better, and after a night’s rest, her mood seemed much calmer.
"About welfare, I do have some opinions.
"80 minutes of visa time per day is still a bit too much for me. I can’t eat that much food.
"Could we lower it a bit, like 50 would be fine?
"I actually wanted to say this at the time, but seeing everyone’s enthusiastic atmosphere, I didn’t have the heart to speak up."
Fu Chen and Li Renshu looked at Su Xiucen’s breakfast and realized this was indeed a problem.
As currently the oldest person in the community, Su Xiucen’s three meals were simple and small, usually just staples with simple vegetables.
When she bought ingredients and cooked herself, the cost of three meals was greatly reduced. Even 40 minutes of visa time would be almost enough.
If Su Xiucen really only used 40 minutes of visa time, the remaining 40 would return to the fund pool, which wouldn’t be fair. Moreover, Su Xiucen had already paid her 5%.
Fu Chen frowned, finding it difficult to decide, "But... this situation seems quite hard to handle.
"Aunt Su, you’re quite frugal, but for most people in the community, 80 minutes per day is just the right amount, already spent quite tightly.
"Look, if we uniformly lower this daily minimum guarantee, others would definitely firmly oppose it because welfare would decrease.
"But if we set different tiers, like some people get 50, some get 80, this visa time still all comes from the pool, which would still be unfair to those who only get 50.
"To be more fair, we’d need to further refine the rules, like having the 50-tier pay at a lower percentage..."
Obviously, the root of this problem was different lifestyles.
Su Xiucen preferred a frugal lifestyle, but except for her, everyone else still felt 80 minutes of visa time wasn’t enough.
Because Community 17 was mainly young people overall, none were particularly frugal.
Wang Yongxin was a bit older, but because he was originally quite wealthy, his consumption habits were similar to young people.
Although Cao Haichuan wasn’t particular about food either, he had to buy cigarettes every few days.
According to community prices, 80 per day was a very normal standard, not even enough to eat anything too good. The remaining visa time would be spent on snacks, coffee, and similar things.
In other words, only Su Xiucen had this money-saving idea; none of the others did.
Since that was the case, no one would be willing to vote for a separate proposal just for her alone.
Li Renshu thought for a moment and politely declined, "Aunt Su, I think setting different tiers isn’t good. It would always give people a feeling of ranking community players into different classes.
"But don’t worry, I’ve thought of other ways to solve this problem.
"The reason we set the standard at 80 minutes of visa time per day was actually to give everyone some material incentive.
"This New World is cruel and precarious, so we need to ensure quality of life even more. Because good food is also a kind of spiritual incentive that can help us find some happiness in this dark world.
"Like the group meal after the last game ended, everyone was very happy, which could inspire fighting spirit and enhance community cohesion.
"So we should encourage everyone to appropriately spend a bit more money to improve their material consumption, not save blindly. Because excessive penny-pinching would also affect our mood and atmosphere.
"Like Officer Cao likes smoking, Wang Yongxin likes coffee. For them, cigarettes and coffee are things they’d rather go hungry than give up. And others more or less all have things they want but are reluctant to spend visa time on.
"I think you don’t need to be so frugal either, Aunt Su. Appropriately improve your consumption level.
"Of course, I know you’re actually worried about survival. Don’t worry about that. I just discussed with Fu Chen, we plan to optimize this community protection fund plan, setting up thresholds, interest-free loans, and redistribution mechanisms. You don’t need to worry too much about serious consequences from spending an extra 30 visa time per day.
"Let’s not get too entangled in these trivial matters and focus our energy on the games."
Su Xiucen wanted to say something more but finally nodded somewhat reluctantly, "Sigh, alright, I’ll listen to you."
Fu Chen suddenly thought of something and asked curiously, "Speaking of which, Aunt Su, was it you who cast the opposing vote back then?"
Su Xiucen quickly waved her hands, "Definitely not me. Although I thought 80 per day was a bit much, since I agreed at the time, how could I vote against it privately?"
Fu Chen nodded, "Mm, I thought so too. It’s nothing, Aunt Su, I was just asking casually."
He continued organizing the content they had just discussed in his notebook, thinking about what kind of proposal to set up.
Just then, a new broadcast appeared on the big screen.
[There is a vacancy among players in this community. After 24 hours, the community will incorporate a new player as a supplement, becoming the new Player 10.]
[Before this, players can propose requirements for the new player’s age, gender, occupation and other related factors through proposals.]
[If no new player is needed, this can also be refused through proposals.]
[Requirements receiving 7 or more votes will be formally submitted to the community. The community will screen within a certain range according to these requirements and incorporate a relatively suitable new player.]