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The Existential Threat, Part II


Vladimir

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TheKarmaCurve.jpg

This article is best read while listening to Rico.

Discussion on the great existential threat has picked up again since I last wrote on it, but only amongst the chattering classes of the OWF. Alliances which had once shown such concern over our world's future continue to ignore the issue despite rapidly accelerating decline. Moreover, they have conducted a u-turn on the causes and remedies they had once championed by denying the responsibility of powerful alliances. They won't conduct the open diplomacy they once called for, or shift their policies to create the dynamic multi-polar world so many died for.

An honest change in intellectual direction, I'm sure. Though one can't help but notice that these changes of direction all seem to have coincided exactly with the powerless becoming the powerful. Of course, once cannot expect the powerful to act in ways opposed to their immediate interests, which is why it was easy to predict the continuation of secret diplomacy, curb-stomps, harsh terms and uni-polarity. It's just a shame when these immediate interests lead to the destruction of the entire world in the post-immediate-term. The oceans are rising.

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Hold up a tick, the world is definitely multi-polar, or at least more so than it has been in several years. We have C&G, then we have SF, and TOP and what's left of what was once called the Citadel. And don't forget ex hegemony. That doesn't sound like a terribly uni-polar world to me. Just because some of them happen to have a diplomatic dialog going doesn't mean they are united. Now I know that's not the point of this article entirely, but I thought I should get that cleared up. Otherwise, interesting perspective.

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Right, that's why I was asking. Frankly I'm not quite sure what your saying. Are you blaming the player loss on Karma, or are you saying that Karma has forgotten about it now that it no longer serves their purposes?

Also Xion, that is hardly the point (and both of those blocs would argue that you are wrong anyway). It would be like calling the NPO and NpO one alliance.

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But they do have a common interest, common views points etc etc. Can't call that two poles but just one pole.

Right, that's why I was asking. Frankly I'm not quite sure what your saying. Are you blaming the player loss on Karma, or are you saying that Karma has forgotten about it now that it no longer serves their purposes?

I think his point was the increased loss of players.

Sadly enough this isn't the only on-line game that shows this, a lot of them have the same problem.

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[quote name='xoindotnler' date='07 September 2010 - 02:15 PM'

]But they do have a common interest, common views points etc etc. Can't call that two poles but just one pole.

.

Well I guess this is a matter of definition then. But you do have a point. In regards to the trend in online games, I've noticed it myself. Frankly the console has drawn many people away from online browser based games such as this.

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I remember Karma saying NPOs policies and global control was the reason people were leaving the game. People are leaving faster than ever since SG took over. By Karmas logic SGs iron grip on the world and policies must be the reason people are leaving the game. Then again they were probably just full of it.

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Vladimir is a master at creating straw men to rail against, and I hear plenty of complaints coming from his general direction, but there is a notable absence of proposed solutions.

After years of living on the hills overlooking the sewage treatment plant, has one Pacifican finally noticed that it sucks to live downstream?

-Craig

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Vladimir is a master at creating straw men to rail against, and I hear plenty of complaints coming from his general direction, but there is a notable absence of proposed solutions.

After years of living on the hills overlooking the sewage treatment plant, has one Pacifican finally noticed that it sucks to live downstream?

-Craig

You need to reread it if you do not see the solution.

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Well, it seems like the solution he has only ever provided is that OTHERS need to do more about it. It's not a solution if the proposer doesn't take some responsibility for making it happen. Craig seems to be right. The only thing that comes from this blog (other than a great place to argue :P) is complaints. And "Karma should fix it" is hardly a solution.

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Correlation is not causation. SF and C&G have done far less to drive people from CN than you and your alliance did when you ruled the world. There are other factors involved in the decline in players which we can’t do anything about.

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Lol, nice job with the extrapolation. You'd have to propose a solution when you preach about the end of the world, though. Not everyone is bright enough to see a solution here that pleases everyone.

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/me shrugs

Nordreich's membership has grown by twenty percent in the last month.

What, me worry?

/me shrugs

Why you think anybody gives a flying $%&@ about NoR is beyond me,...

Problem with the membership of the game, as I said somewhere else, can not be resolved. Games are like living organisms. So yeah,...its fighting the wind here. Though, at least, the retarded narrative that NPO is killing the game luckily has stopped, as from all the political propaganda dribble that was one that strike me the most as if not for the NPO community-- this game would never lift off the ground. So yeah,...

One thing that was though mentioned as a means to at least make the game more entertaining for those still around, and was to shift some attention from irc towards the boards, didn't happen. Its a shame about that.

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After years of living on the hills overlooking the sewage treatment plant, has one Pacifican finally noticed that it sucks to live downstream?

Ignoring for a moment the ridiculousness of this ad hominem attack, it is interesting to note that implicit in it is an acceptance that the world is the same as it was, just with a handful of alliances shuffled up and a handful shuffled down. The king is dead, long live the king.

Well, it seems like the solution he has only ever provided is that OTHERS need to do more about it. It's not a solution if the proposer doesn't take some responsibility for making it happen. Craig seems to be right. The only thing that comes from this blog (other than a great place to argue :P) is complaints. And "Karma should fix it" is hardly a solution.

I have pointed out the solutions which Karma proposed to implement during its rise to fame and fortune. The point Karma made was that this world revolves entirely around alliances, and as such its appeal will depend on the structure the alliances set up. And, of course, the structure is established by the strong. These were the premises underlying the entire project. They are the solutions of those who now attack me and waffle away saying it is all inevitable and nothing can or should be done. That is to say, the grand solutions of the revolutionaries have all faded to black now that such solutions would require them, rather than someone else, to act in a way beneficial to the world rather than their own narrow and immediate self-interest.

I guess Bakunin was wrong. People are much happier when the stick they're being beaten with is called "the People's Stick."

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Heh. I think you misunderstand the quote. Bakunin was an anarchist, and he was attacking the concept of a revolutionary state, saying that both the old and new states would in practice be the same to the common man regardless of the propaganda used by the latter. The abstract 'people' are no more in control now than they were in the past; it's just a slightly reconfigured elite standing above them.

The rest of your post misses the point spectacularly, and is just a bit silly. There are enough 'NPO SUCKS AND I HATE YOU!' comments on my blog already, so hopefully we can let that die here and move on with civilised discussion.

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Vlad I've done this before. Its all boredom, or a game, or both. But it seems silly to blame a natural population loss of a game on Karma. Almost like a...cop out.

Also, If I may ask a personal question. These aren't ideas you believe in real life are they? Being a communist/fascist/anarchist can be a dangerous thing for your health in America.

That is, unless you live elsewhere.

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Heh. I think you misunderstand the quote. Bakunin was an anarchist, and he was attacking the concept of a revolutionary state, saying that both the old and new states would in practice be the same to the common man regardless of the propaganda used by the latter. The abstract 'people' are no more in control now than they were in the past; it's just a slightly reconfigured elite standing above them.

The rest of your post misses the point spectacularly, and is just a bit silly. There are enough 'NPO SUCKS AND I HATE YOU!' comments on my blog already, so hopefully we can let that die here and move on with civilised discussion.

So... Then the NPO's August Revolution didn't really accomplish anything at all, except possibly to replace incompetent leadership with better statesman. But for the average footsoldier, nothing is different than it was under the old regime because revolutionary governments don't work. Interesting.

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Dear me. From one end of the silliness to the other. I think it's around this point that Trotsky would be going off on the vacillations of the degenerate bureaucracy.

The quote was to emphasise the fact that people are now sitting here defending the fact that nothing has changed and then rationalising it to themselves by sticking their tongue out at the NPO. As you might expect given my name, and given my library of prior writings, I do not agree with Bakunin on the the wider point. My correctness on this is self-evident when it comes to the August Revolution.

Vlad I've done this before. Its all boredom, or a game, or both. But it seems silly to blame a natural population loss of a game on Karma. Almost like a...cop out.

Also, If I may ask a personal question. These aren't ideas you believe in real life are they? Being a communist/fascist/anarchist can be a dangerous thing for your health in America.

That is, unless you live elsewhere.

It is Karma that blames Karma for the population loss, which was the point of the article. If they never believed it to begin with then that's a pretty appalling abuse of OOC arguments for IC ends. But regardless, no, I wouldn't say that it's a cop-out. The premise that in a world defined almost entirely by its community, the community might be somewhat important for nation retention, is quite sound.

[Yes I am a communist (which is very different from being a fascist), and no I don't live in America. However, I am not sure what you mean by 'these ideas' -- the population of Earth is booming!]

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No no no people are attacking you because you seem to continue a grudge that is long over. The NPO has been released from its bonds, and right now is not under any punishment. You are, after all the only pro NPO blogger left on the forums who speaks out often about issues which seem to be gone. That without a doubt makes you a target. Not to mention the fact that a vast majority of this game is based in the United States, and as I said America is not fond of anything that reminds them of the Reds (which in this case is Francoism). I for one am open minded, but I don't represent the feelings of most people here.

EDIT: The only reason I argue is because it's a good laugh.

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People attack me because I outline the often ugly structures that underlie their ideologies and activities. I bring the motto of 'question everything' with me, and it is rarely popular with those being questioned. That was true before the Order was in power, while the Order was in power, and so it is little surprise that it is also true after the Order was in power.

I have not experienced this American prejudice you speak of -- at least not explicitly. But if people let emotion cloud their judgement then that is their weakness, not mine.

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