Vhalen
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Posts posted by Vhalen
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Everyone knows I'm out to kill all former allies, right? Ignoring all evidence about why former allies died, you merely are going to state we kill everyone that we are no longer friends with. That's easilly one of the worst arguements I have ever seen.
I believe I was stating a hypothetical case. I'll go ahead and stand by it, however, and say that if it were to happen, it wouldn't go well for the other party, despite official stance most likely being something along the lines of, "We wish our former ally all the best."
It's hardly among the worst arguments, though. Feel free to list former allies who have remained prospering and haven't been beaten down. I'm sure if you search all the logs and histories, you can turn one or two up. I'm actually interested, in fact.
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Right. That's gotta be it. Polaris never did anything undeserving of it's fate, and it's everyone elses fault. Polaris never tried to destroy Continuum, nor did it try to mess with other allies of the NPO, or meddle in the internal affairs of the Order. We didn't try to save Polaris from our allies even to the point of alienating them. None of this ever happened, and any of our allies who say it did are merely lying because we told them to.
Polaris never had its allies picked off, one by one, in response? Polaris never deposed its leader in an attempt to rectify things, only to have an "unbreakable bond of brotherhood" torn down? I'm not saying Polaris was wholly blameless, but you can't possibly claim NPO is either, and retain anything close to credibility.
You are trying to be disingenuous, and subtle, but it doesn't really work. Your basic arguement is that people think "If I stop being allied to the NPO, I'll die." This train of thought leads to the obvious conclusion that the NPO just kills off former allies, otherwise that train of thought wouldn't exist, as it completely ignores any outside variables. I know you can do better then that.So you expect us to believe, instead, that if an ally says, "You know, things just don't feel like they once did. We're just going to drop our treaties with you," they're not going to end up with a mudhole stomped in them? Heh, okay. Got any bridges for sale?
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those people are the ones doing this if you noticed. In this last war, BLEU was hit hard by alot of the big alliances. these are the influential people that you claim would care. I highly doubt they care about a hostile takeover as they played a a part in this.
Perhaps the movers and shakers in other colors? Don't let your color treaties wobble at all, aqua, orange, etc...there's already blood in the water. (Wow, how fitting in hue is that metaphor?)
I imagine if the signatories of this bloc intended to clarify the senate clause in this thread they would have done so already.
It should all become clear on Friday.Precisely. Since it hasn't been clarified (and if that doesn't change), it's clearly meant to be read as written, as a declaration of total ownership of the senate.
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And you are missing the point entirely. The analogy does not work, I think I pointed that out. The only time CN wars are a bar fight is when you're watching The Real World: Cybernations.
Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. I think that's rather subjective. Either way, your description of it was pretty lousy.
CN wars are more of a lynching than a bar fight, though. You're right about that.
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To use your analogy, you don't smack someone in the face so hard that they fall to the floor, and then watch them get up again and beat you to a pulp while you just stand there. That's stupidity at its finest.
Smack = first attacks. Beat up = entire war. Assuming you win the beating up, you don't then proceed by saying that since you won the fight, you'll just break their arms and legs a little to ensure there are no further fights. That's bullying taken to the nth degree.
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Yeah sure ... but I'm a 'hardcore tC defender'?
My statement was in response to to Hellangel's response to Mobius, where Mobius said, essentially, "This isn't targeting the establishment's leaders." If you fit that category, then yeah, if not by words, at least by deeds, you are. I'm too tired to hunt down all your posts and decide.
I took the argument seriously in my first post here. Sometimes I'm just not in the mood to be intelligent.It seems to me that you're not really saying anything very profound. Yes, there is a global hegemony, and no, it's not great for the game ... or at least for the people who are outside it. Okay, good. The hegemony does not have plans to take over the rest of the planet, we do not plot or scheme, and we do not even act in concert most of the time. In fact I'm not sure that there has been a war where all of Continuum has coordinated and attacked a common enemy; the war on three fronts against Hyperion, Polaris and MK would be the closest thing to that, but we were all attacking for different reasons and coordination was fairly local.
All the 'hegemony' does in a hegemonic fashion is the static act of being tied to each other, meaning that you cannot attack any member. It is unlikely that any member alliance will become so disgusted by the obligation to ... well, do nothing
... that they will attempt to destroy it from the inside, and unlikely that an outside movement can destroy it (because any attempt so to do brings us together). Vox Populi was a creditable attempt at a populist movement and achieved some transient success (in the Senate and with a volley of nukes), but that flare is burnt out now and I don't see another one coming up.Your best bet is to wait and hope that there are internal tensions that will cause a natural split, as with the Initiative. Ironically, the best way to bring that about is to engender a long period of peace without any threats to the hegemony; without the need for mutual defence, there is more chance of is dissolving. But don't hold your breath, we do not have the cultural disconnect to the same extent that the Initiative did, in my opinion.
In the spirit of the highlighted section above, I call for the following: any alliance who begins to feel at odds with the "hegemony" to the point where violence may soon break out, disband and move to unaligned red. Enough months of this strategy, and the "hegemony" will be forced to fight amongst themselves, or the game will get so boring it won't be worth playing for anyone. Since game mechanics and game state make war an unfeasible option, passive resistance is the logical way to go.
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Oh i always thought the demise of the Continuum would come from within. Anyway, where exactly is the army you are addressing which is able to bring us mean despots down?
Just to make a point, it can come from within and not draw from the hardcore tC defenders. There are an awful lot of players in those alliances. I'm quite certain they don't all agree on everything.
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Voxian Ideology: http://cybernations.wikia.com/wiki/Despoti...ealism_in_Decay
Francoism: http://cybernations.wikia.com/wiki/An_Intr...on_to_Francoism
Mobiusism (aka. 'wait... what?'): http://forums.cybernations.net/index.php?s...t&p=1022410
Now with 20% more grandiose prose.
Anyone else find it amusing that Vlad is the author of the wiki piece "explaining" his enemy's idealogy? I'll admit that didn't read past that (no time at the moment; had to get ready for work), but I'm sure it's totally unbiased.
For comparison, here's the other side of the coin: http://forums.cybernations.net/index.php?showtopic=33009. I don't promise it's unbiased either, but I do prefer people see both halves of things before drawing conclusions.
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But then I went and asked them and found out that it does not.
They'd better do some editing to the treaty, then, because that's not how it reads.
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To put this issue to rest, BLEU can continue to vote for its own senators and this treaty does not claim ownership over all three Blue Team senators.
It absolutely does. Whether they choose to enforce it is another story. Certainly it's easier with Polar not being allowed to run a candidate, conveniently, for several election cycles. Isn't that curious timing?
And before anyone says anything about, "fixing chaos in blue," I'll point back a few pages at where we saw that this has been in the works for months (presumably waiting until after the war was started, finished, and a status quo established, to be unveiled).
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Ah.
Revolutions are not started by intellectual discussion. They are started with bullets.
Regardless of anyone's opinion on what it is to be Pacifican or what the status quo of the Continuum may or may not be no measure of pseudo-academia from either side will convince the masses. The masses are convinced by powerful dialogue backed by powerful acts.
It is easy for anyone to state that the global despotic powers that be are manipulating the world. The end result, however, is always the same.
So what?
Completely untrue. They're always started with words. Bullets play their part, then they're ended with more words. If I were to plan an overthrow of, say, the USA, is the first thing I do to drive to DC and start shooting?
As to the "so what," I believe the response is something along the lines of, "wake up, if you also don't like how the world is being manipulated, and make things change." Enough discontent typically leads to change, and how can one know how much there is, if nobody says anything?
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I'm new so perhaps I speak of ignorance a bit but reading through this interesting read I've concluded a few things.
The whole part of economics in the world of Cyber Nations is based upon tech dealings and trades. Usually the trades are established within the same color sphere so that you receive a +1 hapiness bonus.
I noticed that one of the alliances within this defense pact is a red alliance. So I assume that the trade aspect of an economic pact would be gone which leaves the tech dealing aspect of it. Usually tech dealing takes place within the infrastructure ranges of 1-2999.99 or in some cases 3999.99. Since tech is usually sold in 50's, I've recorded my findings based on nations who have 50 tech. Now the reports I've concluded have shown some congruency.
These nations are based on tech in ascending order; note these are not precise yet notworthy numbers.
MCXA - |199-264| = 65 potential tech selling nations.
Echelon - |11-16| = 5 potential tech selling nations.
LoSS - |13-24| = 11 potential tech selling nations.
NADC - |43-60| = 17 potential tech selling nations.
TFD - |46-57| = 11 potential tech selling nations.
Iceni - 1 potential tech selling nation.
So the overall potential of tech deals within this alliance coming from the blue sphere is around 100 nations who are actively already in tech deals, to a market of 450-600 red nations who are competing with those tech slots.
Perhaps I'm looking too much into it but not only does the trade restrictions look bad economically, but so does the market for tech deals within this economic bloc.
Whatever comes of it won't surmount to much on an economic level, but as many have said, maybe there's something more to this.
Shush, it's purely economic. Everyone knows that. After all, if it wasn't, why, we'd have untruths being told, and that just doesn't happen!
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Control over one sphere wasn't enough?
Funny, I could've sworn I was just off in OWF listening to Vlad tell us NPO wasn't interested in control in other spheres, specifically the senate. I guess the left hand doesn't know what the right hand's doing? Or perhaps it was eeeeeever so slightly untrue?
Indeed it is. Polaris still seems quite bitter over that war, and until they can truly and honestly admit their mistakes, they're probably not going to get very far in this area.Mistakes such as expecting NPO to honor their "brotherhood," after pretty much all possible efforts were made to address grievances, instead of pushing them off the sleigh and calling the wolves? I imagine things will go swimmingly once this is truly and honestly admitted by NpO.
Polar is still under terms of their surrender and cannot participate in any alliance or block of any kind. How do you know they will not be asked to join when their terms are over? You don't. So why don't you stop speculating about things of which you know nothing.Hey, something actually pertinent. Congrats.
I thought polarization was what Vox wanted. Now we have two competing Blue Blocs. Dreams coming true 1 color at a time, right? So why the !@#$%*ingCongratulations to our friends and allies. Good luck with your future!
Ah, but this isn't polarization, it's furthering stagnation.
Interesting choice of words. Is this intended to disbar those outside the agreement to hold senate seats?As far as I read this doesn't flatly state that this bloc of blue alliances are the only ones allowed to have senate seats. I will concede that it doesn't explicitly say that anyone else is allowed to though. However, if this was a Moldavi Doctrine/Jungle Accords type of deal I think they would've wanted to make that crystal clear.Tyga, I was interpreting the treaty differently, but you could be correct. Until stated otherwise I would assume that this term:D. The Senate seats of blue sphere will be held by members of this agreement chosen by the signatories and all blue signatory members will vote for this slate of candidates as such. The Red Sphere will be recognized as the exclusive jurisdiction of the New Pacific Order and all signatory members on red sphere will vote for their candidates as such.
means that the Agora signatories will pick senators to vote for and all of their own members will be required to vote for them. Other non-signatories to this treaty will not be prohibited from running their own senators. The more I read the term the less certain I am that that is the case. Further clarification would be nice.
As far as this goes, I just note that it's awfully easy to read this section as a declaration of outright ownership of the senate. That means they could use this section to justify war on any blue alliance with VOTES in senate, not even a senator, by calling it an attempt to take control of senate, and an act of war. Yes, of course this is exaggeration, but CB's haven't exactly had to be strong lately. I grant that they could also "benevolently choose" to allow other alliances to hold seats, and doubtless will use the third senate seat as a tool to pull other alliances further into the web, unless the wrong people get a seat, in which case my exaggeration looks more promising.
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Wow, that suggestion was added quickly.
Well, the charts are brand new, so Admin's pretty familiar with them right now. I imagine it took almost no time.
TOP and Gre are both missing, but I think the chart only takes alliances over 200 members into consideration.Top12, 13 and 14 as "runner up" and the own alliance of the visitor.
Perhaps on SE, there's a member limit. I know the TE charts don't care about alliance sizes.
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Except I said X and you said Y, where Y had nothing to do with X in any meaningful way. You silly person you.
I just reread your post, and I apologize. I must have misread it before, because I thought you'd made commentary about Vlad's seniority, when the actual wording was that he'd "been in a position to have the firsthand knowledge," which didn't actually mean seniority, I suppose. I imagine the proclivity with which the seniority assumption rears its ugly head (second only to "might makes right") inclined me to interpret it that way.
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It comes to my attention, Vhalen, that you aren't actually saying anything. You state over and over again that I am wrong, yet fail to demonstrate why (I think you've discussed the hypothetical plane more than you've discussed CN politics). You attack my method without citing examples of where it is incorrect (basing your attacks instead on a straw man). You attack my various writings without citing a single sentence (indeed, what you have said about them thus far would indicate that you haven't actually read them, since you don't seem to know the subject matter). And you support Mobius's argument by... well, repeating ad nauseum Mobius's argument.
What is there to respond to when your post consists of a 500 word 'nu uh!'?
In the past, I've pointed out quite a few specific flaws in several of your essays, so yes, I've read quite a few of them. I see no particular value in reading them again, as they weren't too entertaining the first time. You've never responded to my points, so I'm not going to bother tracking all your essays down to circle everything again for your benefit. The vast majority of what I've said in this thread, however (up until you brought hypothetical aircraft into it), has been in response to your 3000 word 'nu uh,' after all (actual word count estimated, as I'm not going to bother going back and counting). I've said your rhetorical style imitates scholarly writing. It does. I've said you regularly take the position of denigrating the opposition in the midst of your mass of spewed verbage, taking advantage of your mock-scholarly wall of text to try to lessen the opposition's credibility just by directly calling them crazy or stupid. After some impressive verbal contortions, you say Mobius "sounds a little crazy" or refer to his words as "ranting and raving." Yet, your entire argument that his wasn't true was, essentially, "nu uh."
And if you think my presented arguments are the same as his, well, I suggest you go back to grade school to learn reading comprehension. Largely, what I've said is that your debate style isn't much different from the one you complain about, apart from the addition of personal insults.
I can only assume this quote is what you're referring to when you claim I'm attacking a straw man:
In that, I suppose you have a point, because from what all I've read from you about Francoism, the defining points float around however you need them to, in order to present your current argument.Funny, that's what I'd say about Francoism.Furthermore, I'm not going to continue to bicker with you here, as it's getting quite close to personal attacks already, and I neither wish to go that route, nor end up warned because of it. If you want to continue, take it to PMs with me. (Though the stage isn't very big, so I suspect that won't happen.)
That is simply not true. There are many who have been here for a very long time and if someone relates an event in a way that is skewed, they usually post to say that. That has happened many times, and, I am sure, will continue to happen until we all stop playing this game.My point in that quote was to make it clear that, "I was here longer," is not evidence, and should not be presented as such.
That's not even close to what I said. If you're going to complain about someone removing an emoticon from your quote, then don't turn around and try to misrepresent what I've actually said.Just for the sake of clarity, I never complained about an emoticon. Mobius did, and was justified, as the emoticon's inclusion made it clear the quote was intended in jest, and the quoted text without the emoticon was presented as serious. I complained that TrotskysRevenge changed an entire word in my quote (a complaint, and a quote, both clearly meant in jest). No, that wasn't the entirety of what you said, but I tend to use exaggeration as a method of demonstrating absurdity. I notice that the megablocs tend not to realize it's exaggeration. There's probably a psychological reason for this, but that's not my field of study.
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All I have learned from this thread is that everyone's logic is flawed.
That's flawed logic, but I haven't quite puzzled out how, yet.
So those of us who have been here longer than others, especially those of us who have been here from the beginning, are less credible than others because we have seen and actually know more about what has transpired in CN than those who have not been here as long? Because Vlad has witnessed most of CN's history then he is less knowledgeable?Someone's been in the kool-aid again.
Well, you've been in politics longer, which makes you less honest, and therefore less credible.
See what I did there? You said, "You guys are brainwashed cultists," with your kool-aid comment, and I said, "You guys are dishonest politicians," with mine.Actually, the way I read it, Arrowheadian was saying that by invoking, "I was here before anyone," Vlad is able to say, "This happened this way, and because nobody was there and cannot offer proof of the contrary, everything I base upon it is therefore true," which reduces any following argument to a case of faith and not reason. Thus, credibility is weakened.
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If Mobius is mistaking the sun for a UFO then we have a bigger problem on our hands than I thought. The rest is conspiracy theory -- dismiss all of the evidence because you don't like it and make sensational and totally baseless accusations instead -- apologism.
In your blind hurry to disagree, you mistook it for a plane. That isn't an indication of a problem? The second half of your above comments apply equally to you, imo. Look, I'm not trying to make a personal attack, but your modus operandi is:
a: Point out a logical flaw in long essay.
b: Insult the intelligence of the writer and/or anyone who might agree with him.
c: Dredge up some cases that seem to support your side, and or doubletalk until it seems like you have.
d: Come down from the mountain with stone tablets containing the only truth.
I always consider the various different directions something can be read. Where you are getting confused is that I don't spend hours discussing them all. Instead I will demonstrate why the opinion being expressed is incorrect and put forward a better explanation. I won't spend a paragraph explaining why the light in the sky isn't likely to be a leprechaun, for example. You might see that as not being rigorous enough, and if so you are welcome to try and prove the existence of the flying, glowing leprechaun, at which point I will respond to the claim and disprove it just as I did to the previous claim.You do, however, refuse to allow for other possibilities, because as soon as you decide what should be right, politically, for you, you set about crafting arguments to make it so, then declare it fact. That's how one makes a cult. A cult also has in its favor that you can reinterpret the tenets to fit facts, and twist facts by referring to the tenets as fact. Now, where have I seen that behavior...
And I'm afraid you take a rather backwards view of the politics of Planet Bob. Are things sometimes done 'for the lulz'? Yes they are, and this must always be taken into consideration (more so with some than with others) so as to avoid being reductionist [just as we do in RL]. But the fact is that such things are not the motor behind politics, they are peripheral rarities (especially with the downfall of the Unjust Pact alliances). I can assure you, hopefully without too much complaint, that alliances do not get to the top and remain there for long if their actions are based on spontaneous absurdities. It is entirely possible to develop a scientific view of life and issues on Planet Bob.Because it's possible to do so does not mean the science is unassailable or even correct. It's entirely possible to construct an unassailable argument for the Great Green Arkleseizure, too.
As to my view of politics, I believe the current political landscape is a construct to enforce an oppressive regime on the top alliances, playing on mutual fear and paranoia of each other to keep each other in line. With the recent evidence of Polar, who went from "brother" of the NPO to punching bag in the blink of an eye, despite doing their best to make amends (even to the point of a fairly major leadership change), we can see what happens when someone steps out of line. Thus, the megabloc enforces its control over the actions of its contingent alliances by providing examples from time to time of what happens to outsiders who think differently. Freedom (and interesting gameplay) give way to security and stagnation, as the higher-ups hoard their pixels in bunkers and try to avoid doing anything that might make them the next example. (Your "Francoism" is a symptom of this, in fact. It would prefer all alliances be paralyzed in a nonaggression pact with each other, to keep its population safe and strong. In fact, I'll go so far as to say that it prefers the war features to be erased from the game. After all, even a carefully cultivated garden of an enemy might accidentally do some damage.)
You are using that line to try and negate the entire point of Ocham's Razor, theArrowheadian, but I'm afraid that is not how it works. Despite their laughable complexity Junkalunka's theories are evidently not more correct.Seems you tend to conform to the "typically misunderstood" version of Occam's Razor. It says your plane is in the sky because it's lighter than air so it floats. Simplest explanation. Fits the evidence (it's in the sky; things lighter than air float). We can't take any scientific measurements while it's up there, so it's inarguable. Maybe the sun's a plane, too. From the wiki: "make as few assumptions as possible, eliminating those that make no difference in the observable predictions of the explanatory hypothesis." It mentions nothing about eliminating those that disagree with your solution.
I'm not saying Occam's Razor is worthless, only that clinging mindlessly to a razor gets your fingers cut.
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Seems some people are missing the point.
Mobius has spotted a light in the sky and concluded that it must be a UFO, clearly indicating that reptilian aliens have developed a shadow New World Order government, a plot with which, logically, our human politicians must therefore be complicit in. From this premise he has concluded that the aliens must be stopped by a popular uprising before they implement their plan to feast on the tender flesh of the human race.
I have pointed out that we're standing next to an airport. Maybe it's a plane?
You can say 'well, they're just two theories', but my point is that one of these theories has taken a single available fact and then gone on a long and winding adventure with zero evidence to try and reach a predetermined conclusion favourable to the author's politics, while the other and looked at the fact and gone with what actually makes sense -- straight from A to B. One might simplify this point and call it Ockham's razor -- a scientific approach.
And this is ignoring the mountains of evidence against the conspiracy theory, such as the guys in the radar tower telling us that it's just a plane , the plane-spotter noting that a plane flies the route every night, a guy with a telescope looking at it and saying "yeah, it's a plane" and my friend calling me from inside the plane and shouting "Hey! This is a plane!"
No, you typically say, "It's definitely a plane," is the thing. I grant that your hypothetical evidence is much better than any actual evidence can possibly prove to be, but even so, one can point out that both the guys in the tower, the guy with the telescope, and the "guy in the plane" have a relation to you, and a vested interest in you being correct. The historical records of flight patters are, mysteriously, something only you and a select few have access to. Later, it may turn out it's a helicopter, or even the sun or moon, both of which also have a tendency to be in the sky regularly. My issue with your rhetoric, in general, is that you quite often say, "A is false, thus B is true," without allowing for anything else. You then call it science, as you have here, despite most of the discussions being about pseudo-politics in a game, where, "for lulz" is often considered a good justification for actions. Seems to me that the arena in which we stand is far from scientific.
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Sanctioning a dangerous rogue nation upon request isn't a sign of NPO/Continuum oppression, it's just how things are done in general. There's nothing special about that situation, and it certainly doesn't mean that Q "controls" all of those colors.
Sanctioning a duly elected senator, with the most votes of anyone, is a bit of a special situation, I'd say. I just glanced at the world sanctions, and I don't see any other senators sanctioned on 8 colors. Let's be clear. Kingzog's senate campaign was a political/PR sensation, and tC flexed muscle to get as many sanctions on him as possible. If it's "just now things are done in general," why didn't he have sanctions on every color?
Well that's pretty much all just opinion and not really worth discussing,Funny, that's what I'd say about Francoism.
other than to say that Vladimir's essays are generally much more well thought out and much more supportable than Mobius's. Largely because Vladimir is and has been in a position to have the firsthand knowledge necessary to know what he's actually talking about, whereas Mobius is forced to try and collect together a coherent picture of something with only a few available pieces, and link them all together with his personal conjecture. I suppose to someone who has even less pieces than Mobius, they may both seem equal, though. Not really sure about your parentheticals there, as I haven't jumped off any cliffs or whatnot. Mobius's essay is largely wrong, I had already said that before Vladimir posted, Vladimir just said it much more thoroughly and eloquently, cause that's what he does."Vlad's been around longer so he's right about everything." Ridiculous. Human knowledge would never get anywhere if this were remotely true. Also, eloquence and a mock-scholarly style doth not factuality make.
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In the spirit of Vladimir's removal of my emoticon, I will remove your and pretend that you are seriously accepting Vhalens reward. ( ... ?)
You may as well. He edited my quote, as the original was "best overuse of" the icon. I suppose one can paint over the plaque, but fortunately the award show was televised above.
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As said, for this to be particularly relevant you have to assume that the entirety of Continuum is regularly cooperating to oppress other alliances. This ignores that each alliance in Continuum has relationships outside the bloc, and their own individual interests, goals, and beliefs. When Continuum agrees to make something happen, it happens, that is true. But that all 12 alliances are always acting perfectly in concert as part of a greater plan just isn't. Someone has to propose the idea. Again, we don't always agree, and constantly proposing "hey let's go make this guy go do something because we can." Is not going to work out well.
No, I have to assume, and do assume, that the entirety of tC is regularly cooperating to oppress Planet Bob in general, by preventing any effective opposition. This prevents anything remotely resembling another power base from being created, because it would inevitably be destroyed in the womb, so to speak. Thus, the game becomes increasingly lopsided and uninteresting, until such time as the treaty web cracks. It's not necessary for all the alliances to constantly act in concert, just so they do most of the time. And "let's make sure nobody can mount anything resembling opposition" doesn't NEED to be proposed. That's the most legitimate reason why Mobius calls it despotism, imo. It's the implied oppression that's the worst problem. If there were a break in the massively outnumbering powerbase, such implied oppression wouldn't have force of law, and more variety would be possible.
I think it's self-evident that Continuum does not pursue domination of color spheres, because it's not true. If Continuum wanted to dominate as many color spheres as possible, we would do a lot better job of it than we are now. Personally, I don't care a whole lot about Senates off of Orange, because they generally don't affect me, so I don't think that they're valuable enough to pursue, and presumably most of Continuum agrees with me. But that's a rather subjective argument. What is objectively demonstrable, though, is that we could, and we don't. That should be enough to negate the argument.Not overall domination, but selective domination. Let's look back at the recent conflict. At NPO's request (or "implied demand" if you prefer), how many colors was Kingzog sanctioned by, for the entirety of the conflict? Eight of twelve? Or was it more? Feel free to pipe up if you know for certain, but I know that means that tC effectively controls at least 2/3 of the color spheres.
That Junkalunka's logic is flawed is enough for me. Vladimir offers much more plausible alternatives that have a much better basis in reality. Some of his points may be somewhat subjective, but in general, it's a much more well supported position than Mobius's.I'm willing to admit the two are pretty much equally flawed, but I won't concede any advantage. Frankly, most of these giant essays make one or two points and surround them with seven paragraphs of idealogical attacks, subjective, nonfactual "givens" and "facts" with no real basis, and a few historical cases in order to invalidate anybody's opinion who hasn't been typing up essays on the forums for two years. In short, I've never been particularly impressed by any of Vlad's essays. I admit they typically look very nice, but substance is generally lacking. Of course, in his defense, he's balancing his entire house of cards on a foundation that regularly shifts its meaning, so it's bound to be a shaky structure. (On a side note, I also find it amusing that Vlad constantly refers to Mobius as Junkalunka, even though it's longer. I'm sure he'll tell us it's because that was an older name, but I think it's largely because it sounds sillier, and therefore helps weigh opinion against him. I'm sure if the older name were Einstein and the newer MickeyMouse, we'd see Vlad using the latter consistently.) (Further side note, I do like that you're perfectly willing to be a lemming, so long as someone on the other side has made a logical mistake somewhere. "Vlad proved that Junka's 'lemmings are suicidal' theory has a logical fallacy. I'm jumping off this cliff for a different reason.")
(Edited for typo, and added a quip.)
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So, by "shut up and stop quoting historical numbers" do you mean "Oh god, I am so way off that I have to attempt to silence my critics from citing real evidence to refute my argument."
I see what you did there.
And with that, I leave the thread.
With that footnote, I was making fun of the other thread that degenerated into a massive argument/discussion of actual combat odds in major wars. I intentionally doubled the 50:1 odds that was used there as an exaggeration. I imagine you just didn't get the reference. Do you see what I did there now?
And with that, I depart the forums for, probably, the rest of the night. (I hear beer is good.)
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Vhalen, you have a strange belief in hivemind.
There are literally thousands of players in The Continuum. Admittedly many are not particularly politically active, but even when looking at important political figures in Q, you're looking at dozens of names, each with their own agendas.
Now, they've allied with each other, because they have some common goals. But believing that every single one of them has exactly the same set of priorities is just bonkers.
Put another way - The Continuum contains The Grämlins as a member. If you don't think there are rugged individualists THERE, you haven't been paying attention.
I'm not saying they all have the same set of priorities. I'm saying tC, as an entity, forces them by and large to behave as if they do. Do you think every player in tC was gung ho about the recent major war? Heck, I'm sure even a lot of members of NPO were decidedly uneasy about attacking MK, even. But they by and large behaved as if they were of one mind. Why? Because dissensions from the bloc's opinion is not a pro-survival trait. It's like the mafia. Once you're in (alliance), you can't get out. Individuals have a bit more freedom in this, I imagine largely because there'd just be way too much bookkeeping, though you'll notice the more vocal ones are pretty thoroughly dealt with.
It should all become clear on Friday.
... that they will attempt to destroy it from the inside, and unlikely that an outside movement can destroy it (because any attempt so to do brings us together). Vox Populi was a creditable attempt at a populist movement and achieved some transient success (in the Senate and with a volley of nukes), but that flare is burnt out now and I don't see another one coming up.
Announcing the Formation of the Agora Accords
in Alliance Politics
Posted
I'm starting to think this is the worst argument I've ever seen. It fits as a reply to anything, it's completely subjective, and you seem to think it totally invalidates anything previously mentioned.
I believe he specifically said in his original statement that signing the neutrality thing was as close as one came to allying GPA, not that it was allying as such. It does seem to indicate a state of neutrality, though, wherein both parties presumably intend to avoid such things as, say, pressuring the other to change its leader, or attacking them. I suppose GPA should've known better, by now, than to think a treaty of any sort with NPO involved is anything more than a piece of paper with some irrelevant scribbles, though, so in that regard, they're completely at fault.