CRUSHTANIA SMASH!!!

Lovely entry. And just because I'm trying to poke holes in your idea hopefully does not classify me as a Freak, but rather as a responsible reader.

Your basic idea, so it would seem (as I read it) rests on the idea that human nature boils down to one of two personalities - either we work for the benefit of our alliance, or we are the ones profiting from the work of others, taking advantage of their hard work, and essentially being "loud mouths" without really contributing. Of course, I'm assuming there is an implication of having some room in between, but this leaves two problems:

1. How is this really different from the userites and feederites? Although this reference to this particular part of Francoist philosophy goes more specific than your model, it appears to be essentially the same.

2. Doesn't this rule out other possible major distinctions between people? As a few case examples:

A. Let us suppose that there are two kinds of people: leaders and followers - people who take initiative and try to actively improve their alliance (leaders), and people who do what they are told, or don't otherwise actively contribute (followers). An alliance of having all leaders may just be as bad as an alliance of all followers - one having too many "type A" personalities, and the other having too many "type B" personalities, with neither alliance getting anything done.

B. As another example, let's say that there are democrats and meritocrats: those who believe in a more democratic government, and those believe in a more meritocratic government. An alliance with too much of an equal balance between the two may result in inner turmoil and lead to ruin.

C. Individuals who focus more on internal affairs and external affairs: some view internal affairs more important whereas others view external affairs more important. An alliance with too many of one kind can lead to an imbalance and lead to an alliance that could look great on the outside but be hollow on the inside.

I think you get where I'm going with this.

That said, your basic idea is right - that Geeks are preferable to Freaks as a way of personal philosophy in order to make ourselves feel better and overall, help the CN community. However, as an underlying philosophy for the whole political atmosphere, I think that the concept of the state of nature is a better model to work off of.

I'm not talking about appearances of activity, I'm talking about actual man-hours put into an alliance. The User/Feederite distinction breaks down somewhat where activity is concerned. When I was in TAB, we had many inactive members. They weren't a drain on our resources because our charter refuses to reward people who do not deserve it. I considered some to be "Freaks" for complaining they did not get a slice of our common wealth. A userite or a feederite would have to be active enough to use or feed. I would hope that most alliances do not reward "Freaks" with lavish amounts of tech and cash for no reason.

The state of nature model can exist along side this one; it just seems to me that the problem in CN at the moment is activity being clustered around very few for little reward or praise.

My comment's a bit off topic, but I loved watching Freaks and Geeks. What a great show.

Apologies for the incredibly late reply (having only just read this article), but I would like to correct your reading of the words 'userite' and 'feederite'. These terms have noting to do with whether you 'feed' or 'use' (though the latter was always a rather nice coincidence), but are instead distinctions made between those from feeder regions and those from user-created regions. That is to say, it relates to the geo-politics of another universe. Since Planet Bob has neither feeder regions nor user-created regions these terms have become obsolete and been more or less dropped from the modern Francoist lexicon, unless discussing pre-history.

This does still link into your article, however, since the premise of the aforementioned groups existing is that 'being determines consciousness' -- that is to say, that the position one sees the world from shapes their world view in fundamental ways, given the different knowledge, interests and experiences that different positions bring. Given this, whether one is a good worker or a bad worker depends largely on the way an alliance is set up and run.

Thus, to simply label members as 'geek' or 'freak' or anything else is to miss the point. While it is important to be able to understand members and how their skills can best be utilised, it is more important to understand your structure and how it will either bring out or hold back the skills in the first place.

So to go full circle, it is this that one must understand when viewing Francoism. It is not merely about naming things or determining use values, but rather it is about gaining a deeper insight into the material realities and how they shape the world around them, thus being able to harness them for the advancement of an alliance.