Enamel's World

Why would any country go out of the way for snowden?

To gain some points as the country that doesn't give a !@#$ what the US thinks.

Because RL governments sometimes like to take a stand for something they believe to be morally right.

And they're far less likely to get rolled for it.

Are CN rogues and alliance response a representative comparator for this particular escapade by snowden?

Certainly not, RL is much more complex and you certainly can't reduce everything to just a few factors like you would in CN.

Whatever reason(s) RL countries have to grant asylum - and the US are certainly not an exception, as they grant political asylum in the tens of thousands each year - it certainly isn't just a case of generalized "return on investment".

CN is not IRL. In IRL wars, real people wind up dying. So it (usually) takes a lot more to get a war going.

CN is not IRL. In IRL wars, real people wind up dying. So it (usually) takes a lot more to get a war going.

It takes very little if the nation is a nation of warmongers and criminals. Sometimes all you need is a homemade drawing showing stuff that doesnt exist.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Powell_UN_Iraq_presentation,_alleged_Mobile_Production_Facilities.jpg

It takes very little if the nation is a nation of warmongers and criminals. Sometimes all you need is a homemade drawing showing stuff that doesnt exist.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Powell_UN_Iraq_presentation,_alleged_Mobile_Production_Facilities.jpg

Or bullets, that may or may not have been fired, as in the case of Gulf of Tonkin.

Whatever reason(s) RL countries have to grant asylum - and the US are certainly not an exception, as they grant political asylum in the tens of thousands each year - it certainly isn't just a case of generalized "return on investment".

Hmm, good post. I went and actually looked up what the Asylum process actually was. As you have stated, there is thousands who apply and receive it each year in the US alone. In 2012, about 50% of the asylum seekers in the United States were from China and Mexico. It says that right of asylum is a human right granted under the human rights act. The human rights act further defines reason for asylum as persecution based on "race, nationality, religion, political opinions and membership and/or participation in any particular social group or social activities" according to wikipedia.

After doing this bit of reading, I'm starting to see why this is such a complicated international issue, because depending on how you think about it, this case could fall into the "political beliefs" reason for Political Asylum; however, this guy signed a contract saying he's not going to divulge national security information, and then he went and divulged national security information. As far as I understand it, the purpose of asylum is not to protect criminals. The purpose is to protect people from wrongful persecution. Perhaps the real question is do countries think this guy is being wrongfully prosecuted? I don't know why any country would be happy with someone leaking what they considered national security information after they agreed not to. Granting someone asylum with that logic is tantamount to, "We don't support mass murders, but we'll grant this known, self proclaimed, mass murderer political asylum". I could see certain countries doing that coughirancoughvenezuelacough, but that's highly questionable logic by most countries standards. The only reason I could see someone wanting to grant this guy asylum if they felt they had something to gain from it, but again, wars have been fought over less. Relationships have certainly been damaged over less.

I still think this can be applied to CN on a wide scale. I don't know why everyone is so reluctant to see the parallelisms here. If I leaked damaging documents from sparta, or any alliance for that matter and all the documents significantly benefited you personally, none of you would protect me. None of you!

Watching the pixels on someone's CN nation rearrange themselves to form different numbers is a lot different than watching someone be thrown in prison for the rest of their lives, and probably be tortured.

Watching someone leak forum information is a lot less serious than releasing information that impacts 6 billion people, too.

RL Wars usually involve people's lives hanging in the balance. You really cannot compare CBs in CN and RL ones.

It takes very little if the nation is a nation of warmongers and criminals. Sometimes all you need is a homemade drawing showing stuff that doesnt exist.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Powell_UN_Iraq_presentation,_alleged_Mobile_Production_Facilities.jpg

Yes, because all Americans are criminals and warmongers smh.

Watching someone leak forum information is a lot less serious than releasing information that impacts 6 billion people, too.

And so is this game. Stop being so dense.

And so is this game. Stop being so dense.

Lmao, what am I being dense about? All I'm saying is that this game isn't so different from real life. Yeah, there's differences. "crime" between the two worlds has significantly different magnitudes, and the punishments are also of different magnitudes, but the way the two world's handle crime and punishment has some striking similarities.

I just find it interesting that this guy has done something very serious, and the masses clamor behind "freedom of speech, and don't trodden on my rights", when in fact the guy is quite clearly trying to use his trust privileges and other countries as a tool to damage the US. He didn't have to take an OPSEC job if he had ethical issues against it. That's the first question the recruiter asks you when doing any defense projects. If a leak like this happened to goons (fakeedit: Oh I see you're in LPH now), you guys would be throwing a !@#$%*fit, as you rightfully should. Someone betrays your trust, you have a right to be upset. I'm surprised more people in RL aren't outraged by this. The people barely complained when the patriot act was put into effect. We all knew this was going to happen as a result, and now people are acting all surprised, when it could have significant negative impact on them? I don't understand you, america.

I guess it's easy to let this guy go, because the negative impact of his actions won't ever be immediate or clear, although the positive impact will likely be more government transparency. The truth of the matter is that's no excuse for putting people in danger or violating the law. The older I get, the more I realize that accidents, ignorance, or "doing the right thing" are not excuses for violating the law. This guy is not an exception. That applies in RL as much as it does CN.

It just goes to show how important it is "the people" carefully look at the legislation put into place. The patriot act was a gateway piece of legislation. It probably never should have been passed as it stood, but it is what it is.

There is one thing that is worse than RL-CN comparisons, it's CN-RL comparisons.

There is one thing that is worse than RL-CN comparisons, it's CN-RL comparisons.

If I'm so wrong, how about putting some content down?

because it isn't worth arguing how a browser game and the implications of a potential global war are different

But you don't find it interesting, that cause and the effect of what has been done, has similiar impact on the community, yet you don't want to acknowledge why the public response between both events is being hailed so differently?

I find that extremely interesting.

btw how stupid this post is has made it a minor hit on some forums.

btw how stupid this post is has made it a minor hit on some forums.

Content or gtfo

Honestly, I don't care if you don't like the post. But if you're going to make a post, and least prove me wrong, heh. You took the time to read it and comprehend it enough to believe that I'm off my rocker.

CN as a game implies that there are not only rules as to how the game is played, but that there is a recognised way of 'winning'. While some people wish that there were a complete set of rules for international diplomacy, there is no universally-accepted set of such. And it is not something that can ever be definitively 'won', or 'lost'.

By contrast, CN has pretty damn clear rules, well-controlled parameters for nation activity. While wars are larger and more destructive in CN (if projected onto the same scale), there is almost always a war going on on Earth, somewhere. Subtract tech raiding from the equation and suddenly, this game is actually more peaceful than CN, thanks to its long periods of peace interposed with shorter periods of heavy destruction.

Re; OP - no, it's not comparable. Snowden isn't a nation. Were he a whistleblower against almost any agency other than the NSA, he wouldn't be the subject of a worldwide manhunt. When someone blows a large (and probably infamous) Alliance's spy operations in CN, they do not have a hard time finding somewhere to run. There is far less political fallout in accepting such individuals. And the US would not go to war over Snowden, either. Obama pretty much said something to that effect.

If we were to make a comparation between RL and CN, then it's the alliance "US" who is guilty of spying on other alliances, not nation leader "Snowden", neither would be alliance "Ecuador" if they harbor Snowden. Snowden is nothing more than the leader of a nation from the alliance "US" who has exposed the spying scheme by publishing screenshots from the forums of alliance "US" in the OWF, and now has taken the reasonable move of leaving his former alliance when it threatens him with ZI.

So, if RL were CN, now alliances "China", "Russia" and "European Union" would declare war on the alliance "United States" for spying.

Since RL is no CN, we will be spared the nuke exchange, though. All China and Russia are doing is laugh their asses off while the goverments of the European Union feel embarassed as it has been exposed that Master is spying on the Servant's Quarters.

Content or gtfo

Honestly, I don't care if you don't like the post. But if you're going to make a post, and least prove me wrong, heh. You took the time to read it and comprehend it enough to believe that I'm off my rocker.

you don't have to read very far to know that you are an imbecile and this is a really really stupid analogy.

If your primary source of "knowledge" about how world affairs and diplomacy works is from how it works in CN, you need to stop playing CN.

"It's wrong in CN so it's wrong in real life". Unbelievable.

you don't have to read very far to know that you are an imbecile and this is a really really stupid analogy.

I see. So instead of just disagreeing and moving along, you're going to come and mindlessly troll a Cybernations OOC OP-ED Blog. Makes sense.

If your primary source of "knowledge" about how world affairs and diplomacy works is from how it works in CN, you need to stop playing CN.

"It's wrong in CN so it's wrong in real life". Unbelievable.

You are vastly missing my point. You must really take me for a fool if you think I'm just porting over my CN knowledge to RL, heh. Have you never read an employment agreement? I believe even for the most trivial jobs, such as flipping burgers at Mcdonalds, you have to sign a non disclosure agreement stating you won't give away trade secrets to Burger King.

If you decide to quit Mcdonalds and go work at burger king; first day on the job you say, "Whoa you're flipping burgers all wrong. Mcdonald's flips the burger precisely 3 times. Only then, burger perfection can be attained". You may be doing Burger king a huge favor by giving them this information; however, you're in gross violation of your Mcdonalds NDA. Lawsuits can be filed over that. It's punishable by law. People have been punished by law for it. People will be punished for it in the future. This is not a new concept. The fact that most CN alliances have psuedo non disclosure agreements required (or implied) for membership is entirely a footnote, but my point, that everyone is roid ragin' about, is "NDA's" exist in CN for the same reasons NDA's exist in RL. It's one of the many tools with which to protect your enterprise. If you don't want to accept the analogy, then fine. The guy still violated an NDA, which is a criminal act in RL.

CN as a game implies that there are not only rules as to how the game is played, but that there is a recognised way of 'winning'. While some people wish that there were a complete set of rules for international diplomacy, there is no universally-accepted set of such. And it is not something that can ever be definitively 'won', or 'lost'.

By contrast, CN has pretty damn clear rules, well-controlled parameters for nation activity. While wars are larger and more destructive in CN (if projected onto the same scale), there is almost always a war going on on Earth, somewhere. Subtract tech raiding from the equation and suddenly, this game is actually more peaceful than CN, thanks to its long periods of peace interposed with shorter periods of heavy destruction.

I think you're getting confused between RL and CN. However, if I understood your post correctly, couldn't all these things be said about RL? War is always occuring in RL. It's just that the media drowns out what is occurring in third world countries. Furthermore, how do you win RL? There's just as little definition for winning RL as there is CN. The only difference is that you can escape CN by quitting. You can't quit RL.---err well, you can, but it's not pretty. xD

Re; OP - no, it's not comparable. Snowden isn't a nation. Were he a whistleblower against almost any agency other than the NSA, he wouldn't be the subject of a worldwide manhunt. When someone blows a large (and probably infamous) Alliance's spy operations in CN, they do not have a hard time finding somewhere to run. There is far less political fallout in accepting such individuals. And the US would not go to war over Snowden, either. Obama pretty much said something to that effect.

I think the analogy really only applies for a very specific event: rogue behavior, and from a high level view. Obviously Snowden isn't a nation, but in reality, "nations" are just text defined by admin. I sometimes think of alliances as "nation simulators" and the nations as "individuals". Admin could change the text, and I don't think gameplay would change at all.

Don't forget bradley manning was sought after by the US military after he leaked some serious government documents too.

Yeah, sometimes CN rogues do get accepted into alliances in CN; however, in my experience, that usually doesn't bode well for those alliances. Dave93 was arguably the last straw for MK, for example.

And no, I don't think the US will go to war over snowden either, but I do somewhat expect that they will get the opportunity to punish him with prison time.

Cheers and thanks for the post

If we were to make a comparation between RL and CN, then it's the alliance "US" who is guilty of spying on other alliances, not nation leader "Snowden", neither would be alliance "Ecuador" if they harbor Snowden. Snowden is nothing more than the leader of a nation from the alliance "US" who has exposed the spying scheme by publishing screenshots from the forums of alliance "US" in the OWF, and now has taken the reasonable move of leaving his former alliance when it threatens him with ZI.

So, if RL were CN, now alliances "China", "Russia" and "European Union" would declare war on the alliance "United States" for spying.

Since RL is no CN, we will be spared the nuke exchange, though. All China and Russia are doing is laugh their asses off while the goverments of the European Union feel embarassed as it has been exposed that Master is spying on the Servant's Quarters.

Awesome post! This is precisely what I'm trying to articulate; however, to add to the complexity, "China", "Russia", and "EU" are spying on the US too.

I find this parallelism so hilarious and interesting. I dare say it's why I'm still playing this game today.

EDIT: knowing that you appear to see this predicament similarly to me, you never answered my last question: Do you believe Ecuador (or any country for that matter) can have a valid reason to harbor this guy?

EDIT 2: thanks for the post, I hope you enjoyed the read.