TheKingOfTheCave

I'm actually going to explore some of Vlad's underpinning ideas in future Essays. Chaos and War are not given, but are indeed decided by nations, and in our case for us. I'd agree it's a realism of sorts. What I'm more or less describing is the personal process of coming to that realisation well lending a ear to some of the options that many other nations will take.

When you first wake in this world you are surrounded by chaos. That is the first lesson that a new nation within Cyber Nations learns upon entry into our cruel world. This is what I had to learn and the quicker one learns it the better. Quicker they can decide to cease to exist or take the pill. Vlad outlines this chaos in his Essay The Meaning of Freedom. He states that “Before the development of alliances there existed only the state of nature -- a state of absolute freedom for the individual nation.” The material conditions of CN create a free for all game where any nation can attack and take from another in a state of perpetual terror. Now what Vlad doesn’t mention is that a nation created today are created will still exist, even momentarily, in a state of loneliness. In this state of loneliness, the nation is alone and completely exposed to the environments of CN. Every new nation will experience the same terror that was felt by those before there were alliances. It therefore also applies that every nation created today will do the same as those before them, and seek a way out of this feeling of terror. They will seek order and peace. The nation will seek to replace the very material conditions of the chaos with order, peace and harmony. They won’t find it though. It doesn’t exist but in the mundane bore of peace mode. The new nation has therefore found themselves in a position of contradiction. They seek absolute order and peace but only find chaos and violence that the world gives them and no reason to believe order exists. The searching for order in a world that gives no reason that it possesses is an absurd world, and every nation will experience this absurdity since we all exist in the same material conditions. So what do we do about this contradiction? We appear to have three answers when it comes to the question of absurdity. 1) Cease to exist 2) Attempt to transcend 3) Embrace the absurd. The rest of this essay will analyse these three choices and come to the conclusion that the only way to deal with the absurd is to embrace it. Option 1: Cease to exist. This options is fairly straight forward. Once a nation is created and they enter into that state of terror, in seeking out order and peace, the nation could simply decide to give up and escape the terror. They will cease to exist. Become inactive, stop running their nation and leave it open to that of raiders that will pick off its bony corpse until it’s discarded into the graveyard of lost nations. I have taken this path before. Now this is fine if the nation simply wants to avoid the feeling of terror but it results in nothing. Nothing changes on CN, the absurdity of the chaos continues from then and evermore. Option 2: Transcending By transcending I mean attempting to overcome the absurd by adopting an ideological position that seeks to bring its own constructed order and peace to the chaos of the world. Now this option is better than CTEing because the nation continues to exist. Hell, if they even believe the drivel of nonsense of whatever ideology their alliance holds, they may even believe they’ve “transcended the absurd”. How many great alliances though with their ideologies held close to their heart, and at times, out like a sword have fallen though? One may only have to whisper “Francoism” in another realm to realise how things disappear and are forgotten even in the same material world that they once dominated the minds of. Ideologies are mostly used by alliances to get more members. Nations may stick around longer if there's an ideology that can promise them some kind of peace and order. What nations are doing here in choosing this option is taking a leap of faith that the ideology they’ve chosen will bring order and peace to their world. Since the world has given them no reason to think absolute order and peace can exist, the nation is not yet overcoming the absurd. The contradiction still exists and therefore the two will clash, the ideology and the material world. The material world is set in stone thought while the ideology is like a fragile glass statue. Option 3: Embracing the Absurd Embracing the absurd is realising that the world cannot be changed by any pursuit for order and peace and that if you wish to exist in the material conditions of CN, you must accept the conditions and embrace it. By abandoning this notion of trying to change the very conditions of the world, you take the only direction that will truly result in you overcoming the absurd and ultimately finding peace in the world. That is, you may come about to find a sense of peace and reconciliation with world dominated by war, chaos or decisions made by leaders that don’t follow any rationale at all. In doing so it may be possible to exist long term in this world. OOC: I hope you enjoyed my surly bastardisation of absurdism in trying to apply it to CN. Also this was actually initially an essay that meant to pump up Producerism. After spending enough time on CN, I took a different approach.

I can no longer provide tech deals at this time.

selling 100 tech for 5 million. http://www.cybernations.net/nation_drill_display.asp?Nation_ID=600218

I'm a new nation (day old) and would like to sell tech. I'm interested in setting up a long term trade relationship with multiple frequent buyers. Played a few years ago so I'm familiar with how these things work and how to keep track of deals. Nation name is Kallipolis. Message me in game and we can work out details. Hope to trade soon. Cheers TheKingOfTheCave