WOTing on Schatt
“Arguing with anonymous strangers on the Internet is a sucker's game because they almost always turn out to be—or to be indistinguishable from—self-righteous sixteen-year-olds possessing infinite amounts of free time.”
― Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon
The above quote nicely sums up my view of the OWF and why I tend to not engage in debate on it. However, I must be bored with this war because i'm actually going to waste my time responding to your blog. Normally i'm a firm believer of sitting back and just watching the BS.
I also don't claim to be up to Schatt levels of posting ::bows to the master::. You have more experience and probably talent in that sort of thing than I do. So I wont be as witty as you or score as many rhetorical points. Or be as entertaining. Which is why my goal here isn't to 'beat' your post.
But, if you are interested in honestly hearing my thoughts (as opposed to 'scoring points' over a perceived in-game enemy) i'll attempt to answer your comments honestly and thoughtfully.
Let me assure you, I'm "animated" and "passionate," not "angry." Apparently I'm not good at not sounding angry, so I'll just say that you can tell the difference by whether or not I start calling people mean names, like the other day when I called New Frontier an "ignorant piss" (which I regret now, but oh well).
Other than that, "u mad" by any other means smells as funky. Whether or not I'm "raging" has no bearing on any argument at hand, and pointing it out to try to undermine the content of what I'm saying (or anyone else, really) is silly, in my opinion. Some of my best posts are angry posts And if you really want to see angry, you should go around and ask folks for some of my embassy posts or private messages.
In my book "You're running scared." "You're all pathetic." "Big damned heroes and sooooo smug" and "what an embarrassment!" are all calling people names and insulting them. Maybe since i'm a relatively calm and even-keeled person I have a lower threshold for name calling. But if I was walking down the street and someone made those comments to me, I would consider them to be angry, insulting, and name calling. And maybe you meant those insults sarcastically and the tone didnt carry across to me.
However, instead of complaining about people who think you are always mad or always spinning propaganda, you should wonder about WHY it comes up so often? Sure everyone could be out to 'get you' or they could be 'idiots' or they could have 'agendas.' Or maybe... just maybe... its not *just* everyone else but partly you? If you think it silly that people think your posts are angry, maybe the question should be what are you doing to give that silly impression? Especially if it happens so often that its become an in-joke for you.
You are annoyed that me and ChairmanHal have vocally taken this issue up, along with others. Fine. You think that while we might have the right to do so, we have no business doing so. Wrong. This manoeuvre does in fact directly involve Hal's alliance Valhalla, and it does in fact effect all of us as noted above. Global war effects everyone, and the way that C&G conducts itself concerns everyone.
Ignore the OWF at your own peril. I happen to know personally that writing it off is certainly your prerogative, but it's just not smart. Alliances are made up of people, and those peoples' opinions effect alliances in one way or another, sooner or later."
As you so often like to say, don't assume you know what I feel. First off I *DO* think you have no business sharing your thoughts there. You can disagree with me, but what we are doing is debating opinions. Note: I dont deny your *right* to post. I deny that you should *choose* to exercise that right in the manner you did.
Next Note... I was not responding to Hal. I specifically said that direct allies of involved partners (which Valhalla is) have a stake and thus should share their thoughts. Otherwise it would have been somewhat hypocritical of me to be posting there.
I thought *YOU* schatt had no business getting involved. I was responding to *Your* post not Hals. I showed this by quoting you and addressing you. I have no issue with what Hal did. If I had an issue with him it would have been his post I quoted, not yours. I have issue with what you and other lesser would-be-schatts were doing.
As to the OWF. Maybe this has to do with our different approaches to CN. Can the owf have an impact on the game? Yes it can. But the impact it has is one I dont approve of. I do NOT embrace the philosophy that if my enemy does something 'wrong' (in a moral sense) I must do the same or risk them beating me.
Do I like winning? Of course I do. I love it. But it is not the single most important thing to me either. I would rather lose the game but not sink to the level the average OWF poster resides at. Rather than win by becoming what I hate. In an OOC sense I think poorly of those who twist themselves inside and out trying to score OWF points. I can look at a thread on the OWF and before I even open it I know exactly what everyone will be saying. That to me says something about the OWF's worth.
Does that mean there arent gullible fools that take the OWF banter as deep debates revealing the truth of CN? Of course those people exist. But normally I have better things to do with my real life time than entertaining them. I make an exception for you because I think you *are* intelligent. Wrong. But smart.
Irreparable damage? Yeesh! Sounds bad! Here we go, Schattenboogeymann. At once irrelevant and destroying the world; my own irrelevant power never ceases to amaze me.
Excuse me? There you go putting words into my mouth. *AGAIN*.
You complain all the time that people tell what you really think on a subject. And there you went and assumed you knew what I felt. Where did I say you were irrelevant? I most certainly dont THINK that. If I said it I would owe you an apology and tender it to you (as it would probably be me getting carried away in angry rhetoric. Possible I suppose). But I honestly dont recall ever saying that to you.
Despite the OWF propaganda (do we need another example of that place being a cesspit?) i'm no ones puppet ::wry head shake::. I assure you I am a well educated adult capable of my own opinions. I dont consider you irrelevant. Maybe some of my in-game allies do. And if they do, I would tell them they are wrong.
I DO consider you to be a negative influence on this game, one who is damaging it (i'll go more into that shortly) but I do not consider you irrelevant. If I felt you were irrelevant I wouldnt be wasting my time responding to you.
The *issue* is that you are in fact all *too* relevant. My opinion of the people who listen to you and give you credence is relatively low. But that doesn't mean there aren't a bunch of them.
In fact, it is *because* I consider you relevant that I think you bare a responsibility for what I view as the degradation of debate in this game.
I'm not even going to go into your BS about ODN's actions against CoJ way back when (unless you really want me to) because that isn't actually my issue with you. You still seem to be hung up on that war, but I assure you I moved past it long ago. I dont actually agree with most of your post about what happened and I think you are presenting a nice spin story to show yourself in a good light. But there no point in side tracking this argument on a subject I doubt anyone but you and I actually care about. If you really want me to engage you on that subject I am happy to ::bows::. But I'm going to assume it was an aside and not the main crux of your argument.
So, here in sum is my problem with how you conduct yourself. And it is essentially an OOC issue. My problem with you, is you have a goal or an ideology of how the game should be. Your so called CoJ World View. I say you are the problem because you have essentially adopted a slash and burn technique to achieving your goal.
IN MY OPINION (I am not going to keep repeating this. Assume everything i type here is my opinion of what you are doing not hard fact) you have decided that in order to achieve your goals Alliance X Y and Z are in your way. As such, you will do whatever you have to in order to trample them.
That includes dumbing down complex issues into easy rhetorical scoring points. You dont actually care about understanding an alliance or where they are coming from or what they are doing. You aren't interested in promoting deep debate. Or putting yourself in others shoes and understanding and learning from them. You want to force the square peg into the round hole so you can score some OWF points, rile up the masses (that power on the owf you were referring to) and try to harness that to achieve your vision of what the planet should look like.
Never mind if anyone else shares or agrees with that vision. Its yours so it must be right. Forget about seeing what others think or where they stand. Forget about mutual respect.
This is a political simulation game, and politics at time can lead to war and be about enemies. But real life politics can also be about reaching understandings, compromises, and growing/expanding (mentally). You dont see the second half.
And if an alliance stands in your way of getting where you want, you'll do everything you can to embarrass them, make their players miserable (ic and in many cases ooc) and run 'em from the game itself if you can.
The end result is that you have a culture obsessed with winning as the end all be all. More times than I can count.. hell in this very blog.... you dismiss alliances as being toadies. As their every action being about winning or avoiding a rolling or whatever.
Can it help you 'win'? Sure. But to me one of the things destroying the fun in this game is that sort of attitude. The idea of 'them and us' and that everyone is playing for the win, nothing else. That sort of divisive black and white attitude drives people away. And more importantly it withers true intellectual discourse.
I fully expect, for example, that you will take my huge WoT in this blog, throw away 90 percent of it, and then address only the parts you can score a point off of or use to try and make me seem foolish. I hope i'm wrong, but that is what I expect.
Whats the point of me posting on the OWF if I know that you are going to treat my posts as something you have to "beat". That isnt freaking fun. Who wants to be part of that? I play this game for entertainment not for struggle and dominance. I play this game to have fun. To engage with friends. To see interesting political dynamics. To be part of a strong community. Sometimes just to blow !@#$ up.
And that attitude, which I firmly believe in is the healthy approach to this game, is what YOU undermine with your posts and approach to the OWF. IMO you and those like you have created an atmosphere where any rational moderately intelligent and sane individual has to either avoid the place, resort to lulz, or discourse on the level of a freaking fourth grader.
Are you doing this single handily? No. But you are the 'poster child' of this approach. And *that* is why I think you are damaging to CN. Not because of any BS spying on ODN applicant AAs.
it is simple fact that MK's victory in Karma, winning personality, and ability to deliver victory (via its network of treaties) mean that MK is the center of the universe. This, uh, "self-leashing" (if you will) is precisely why you will find that I talk about the dogs more than I talk about MK--the dogs are the problem. I took the same position and tack during the Pax Pacifica.
And maybe part of the reason I dislike you, is I also don't like being called a 'dog' by some OWF personality. Again, it gets back to why you play the game. I am speaking for myself here blah blah blah usual disclaimers. But I don't give a damn about MK's agenda. Hell, I don't even know what it is (according to your view since I think it is just to have fun).
When I defend MK (or any other alliance) in a war I dont do so because of any mysterious agenda. Or because I 'want mk in power'. I do so because they are my *friends* and my cn-brothers-in arms. I dont really care what or why they fight. I find the IC morality of CN eye-roll worthy. Always have. I'm with them because I like them as people. And if Im going to blow stuff up.. or be blown up by others... I want to do it with them.
That is something anyone I ally with needs to have.
Now, can you think I have the wrong approach? Sure. But again, you are trying to fit the square peg into the round hole by dismissing friends of MK as 'dogs'.
Is that how you view COJ's treaties? Everyone is either your dog or you are theres? I kinda pity *you* if that is the case. What a horrible way to go through this game. Never interacting with anyone except on a real-politic basis. I would go insane. That isnt FUN. And this is supposed to be a game.
Instead of applying *YOUR* approach and philosophy to others actions, what you should do is try to understand us. And at least go 'hey, I dont like it or agree but I can see where you are coming from and respect that.'
I do not need to force the world into a dualistic frame, it has fashioned its own dualistic frame. Multiple blocs does not equate to multiple poles; in fact, "Supergrievances" and then DH/PB very deftly avoided the creation of a Continuum-like all-unifying bloc precisely because they knew that while they stayed unified via individual treaties people could say "oh, see, lots of blocs, ergo, lots of poles" but the very second any very large bloc appeared, it would've immediately stirred up a real storm (and of course, yes, they never could quite get over their paranoia toward each other, anyway). At this very moment, this self-leashing is happening as The International "dishonors" (their word) a treaty and lets an ally bur rather than risk breaking the superstructure that has MK at its center (whether MK put itself there or whether MK was put there by all the dogs around it). Along the same lines, Duckroll has, over the years, ignored CB after CB and made compromise after compromise for the same cause. BFF, Checkmate, Stickmen, etc etc--all the same.
And there is where we disagree. I see the world as multi polar. We have blocs and alliances with different cultures, different goals, different mindsets. Different ways of playing the game. And your refusal to see that damages the game. Your obsession with seeing it as dualistic puts pressure on those who DONT fit your view to either QUIT the game or CONFORM to it.
In other words... YOU are creating exactly what you supposedly oppose by your instance on fitting everyone into the dualistic model. Its a self fulfilling prophecy. If you refuse to see anything but black and white, you are exerting pressure on people to identify with a pole.
So, whew. As many people have told me lately, it's been a long time since there was a good ole fashioned Schattenmann wall of text; I hope this satisfies and that I've made my points without too much rage. I get frustrated and I argue my beliefs because I want what everyone says they want: A more dynamic, faster-paced, genuine, fun Digiterra. The difference is, I will put my butt on the line out here on the fringe to enact it, and I have a plan that we don't already know is broken, unlike this rehash of the Pax Pacifica (albeit with less pomp and legalism).
Whelp, I saw your WoT and raised you an Epic WoT ::grins::. Look, do i dislike you? Yeah I probably do. Do I hate you in any ooc sense? No. Do I think you are intelligent? Most definitely.
Which is why i'm bothering to actually reply to you. I'm sure some will say I am just feeding you. Giving you attention that you want. But, what I hope comes from this, is that for a minute you forget that i'm leader of ODN and you are leader of CoJ and that, by your dualistic model, we are supposed to hate each other.
Instead I hope you actually consider what I wrote. And even if you decide you don't agree with it, you realize i'm being honest with you. And you consider if maybe in one or two places I may have had merit or a point. And if you respond, you respond to me in like fashion and put the IC politics aside. ::shrugs::.
But yeah. Hopefully that also clears up why I dislike you. Which has nothing to do with any specific incident three wars ago.
edit: fixed a few typos and some wording that glared out on me.
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