El Bruc
-
Posts
1,277 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Blogs
Gallery
Posts posted by El Bruc
-
-
For example, if I wanted to save words to type something that means "a bundle of sticks" I would be labeled an insensitive homophobe. If I say "Heil" I'm obviously referring to Hitler, and when I say Holocaust, I'm not referring to destruction by fire, but the murder of millions of innocents during World War II.
You could use the term for bundle of sticks to refer to a cigarette in England, and no one would bat an eyebrow. You could say "Heil" followed by something that you wanted to cheer in Germany, and it would be perfectly fine.
The only thing that you assume is that I am a white, American Christian and attempt to make arguments against that sort of person. This is the internet, for all you know I could be of Arab descent, and it really doesn't matter.Actually, I assume that you come from the society dominated by white, American Christians, because you seem to feel that the connotations that go with that terms are inherent to the terms themselves, rather than limited to the society. I feel that way too, but I know better.
P.S: if you have any Muslim friends, a highly informative thing to do is mention in passing that your church is having a "charity crusade" or a "literacy crusade," or something else using the word "crusade" in a benign way, and then watch them totally flip out on you. Same thing in reverse.
-
Congrats on being, and good luck.
Looked kind of like a butt to me.
-
I love how it doesn't have a catchy name. That's actually kind of refreshing.
I also like how your flags look together, with the black + a color, and the colors have similar brightness/hue values. That's nifty.
Congrats, also.
-
El Bruc. I suggest you and your alliance sit down and take a long hard look at your foreign policy. If your attitude towards us is like this, I suggest you don't send us representatives begging for our services with honey-tongued flattery. Being Two-Faced and deceitful is a bad trait for a fledgling alliance. I suggest you look for that help you so desperately want somewhere else.
I was drunk and shot my mouth off in what I thought would be an overlooked, passing comment. Yeah, that was way out of line of me there. I go smack myself around now.
-
Yay for TPF! It's about time.
-
Just because I do not believe, personally in homosexual marriages, does not mean I am "right" OR "wrong". I just don't prefer it, while others are the complete opposite.
OOC:
I find this phrasing to be kind of funny. Don't believe in them? What does that mean, that they don't exist? Don't prefer it? How can you prefer or not prefer what other people do - or more specifically, who cares? Preference is only relevant to your own choices.
In other words, to apply your beliefs and morals to choices that have nothing to do with you is irrational. Illogical. Incorrect. aka, wrong.
-
Regardless of what it actually means, the meaning has been perverted. Holocaust actually just means destruction by fire (usually associated with animal sacrifice), but it will forever be linked to the events of World War II, in the same way Jihad will always be associated with radical Islam.
OOC:
You can only say it will "always be associated with radical Islam" if you're speaking for a majority of the world's population in saying that. Sorry to break this to you, but caucasian Christians are no such thing. The amount of people who say it means "struggle" may outnumber the amount of people who say it means "religious violence."
In order to grok these proportions, you've got to be able to imagine a world where people like you aren't the vast majority, as they tend to be for anyone in the area where they live. Not just admit it, picture it. Over in the middle east, millions and millions of people go about the same business that people do here. Their opinions on religion are, pretty much, the same as those here. What they want out of life, pretty much the same. And so forth. A sea of mostly Muslim faces, all going about their business just like us
But we don't see too many Muslims here in America. If a white Christian blows something up, that's only 1 in the millions and millions that we've seen directly or have seen images of, and therefore we compare it to that imaginary total that we all hold in the back of our heads. Thus, we automatically judge it as a very small percent. When we hear about an Arab Muslim blowing something up, we automatically compare that to a much smaller image made up of the maybe hundreds that we've seen personally or in the media (many of whom also blew something up. which is why the media showed them to us). Thus, the percentage seems big enough to seem like a huge problem for that population group. This process of estimating populations is done subconsciously, and is pretty much automatic for everybody. In order to get over it and make sure your assessment is correct, you have to face your own perceptions clearly and directly.
Seriously: If you really clearly picture what a society that has as many of them as there are of us would actually seem like, then it completely changes such knee-jerk, sweeping estimates of things like what Islam or Jihad actually mean. To base those terms off of the behavior of those people is like letting David Koresh define what Christianity stands for to the world.
-
It can be in your self interest to break treaties, to deceive and lie to other alliances, to spy (as long as you're not caught), to attack potential enemies over fabricated threats or over nothing at all – none of which is moral, if you ask me. In fact morality is often completely at odds with self interest: go back to GOONS v Fark, or the Viridicide; a pure moralist would have intervened, and got crushed.
And how well did doing those things work out for others? How well have they ever? Clearly, avoiding such behaviors is (OOC:) effective gameplay, and therefore "moral" here.
-
As an experienced CN'er, I'm fully aware that a signing bonus is one of the least important possible considerations of joining any alliance; But I can understand how new registrants can have some difficulty properly understanding this concept.
As someone involved in managing recruiting programs, I have to look at it still differently. Our recruiting philosophy is that we quote a reduced rate for signing bonuses to those who ask, and then give them somewhat more than we said we would. That way we both hopefully deter the aid hobos who "graze" from alliance to alliance collecting cash, and at the same time manage to feed decent and proper amounts of cash to our smaller new members, to help keep the alliance stats flush.
-
I'm starting to think that all these people talking about how awesome Kurushio is, amounts to wishful thinking. Kuru could have been - would have been - an awesome GPA prez, if he'd been willing to stick it out for the duration. Sure, he showed great potential, but so does Apriland.
The fact is, the GPA is bound by its Constitution, and they've got some of the best rules lawyers in the biz. If its leaders don't like the decisions required by that document, then they shouldn't have run for office to begin with.
Sorry Kuru, but I'm feeling kind of let down by this. Whatever props people were willing to give you were predicated on the notion that you were willing to do what it took to see the GPA all the way through a complete, positive GPA Presidency. You're not, so they're revoked, AFAIC.
Congrats and good luck, Apriland. Let's see if you can actually see the job through to the end.
-
I think we're presently going with 5+ as a general rule of thumb.
However, each potential target is examined on a case-by-case basis, so it's not entirely cut-and-dry.
-
OOC: Obviously
Excellent work so far, CA. Keep that efficiency up and you'll do fine! I'm looking forward to working with you more closely in the future.
o/
-
Please post either the text of the Peace Initiative Treaty, or the specific goals of having people sign up.
I am very confused.
-
OOC: So, am I a great CN rogue or the greatest CN rogue?
You're doing pretty good so far; only time can tell.
However, the success of CN is tied in to its ability to limit the influence of rogues. If any one individual (other than a major alliance leader) were able to thoroughly upset CN diplomacy on a geopolitical level, then CN will have failed, period. It would be impossible to properly respect the political aspect of the game after that point. As such, there's only so much you can do, as a rogue.
-
Congrats to \m/'s protectorate.
-
I ask the first question because it just makes for a more interesting topic than the OP. What does "moral" mean to you? I've gone on about it, but what about everybody else? What does right and wrong mean to you in CN?
Are you serious El Bruc?More interesting questions are:1) How do you define the term "morally just" and how to classify things as that
... and ...
2) Why should anybody care if something is "morally just," anyways?
1.) It depends on the person.
2.) Because if they don't, their actions could lead to dangerous paths.
Ditto for the second, actually. How, and why? By asking that, I'm not saying people shouldn't be unjust, I'm saying, please explain why someone should actually care about your definition of justice? Obviously, people should care about justice, but can you explain why? If so, reply.
-
One of my favorite things about CN is that its greatest figures essentially fit the Greek Tragedian mold perfectly; their greatest traits are also their greatest flaws. In Ivan's case, he has found that his mission of bringing Order to the Cyberverse has left a Cyberverse largely afraid to buck the Order.
Having won the game, Ivan finds there's no fun left to be had.
Or possibly not; situations are more complex these days. Bloc treaties are more like shifting glaciers; when they crash together, those who can jump to the winning side prevail. But ultimately, CN is now more of a game of gradual attrition rather than immediate, decisive win or phail.
-
Saturday = gin & tonics. It's good to be me.
@ everybody saying "this thread is stupid"
Actually, this thread is kind of awesome, in that it's practically a tutorial on how wars get started, how they escalate, and why. There's very little nonsense here. Almost every post in here is in here for a game-play reason - including Dilber's.
@ Rebel Virginia
You're pretty much going rogue. Your effectiveness as an agent provacateur for the orders notwithstanding, it doesn't seem likely that you'll get any long term personal benefit out of this. But I suspect you already knew that. By the CN victory conditions set for rogues, you're totally kicking $@! no matter what else happens, by creating a big political splash with your individual actions. Congratulations, good job, and good luck.
@ Orders
Sometimes people in one circumstance are completely different in behavior and how they relate to you when put in a different circumstance. For example, great leaders can become lame rogues, and those who are overlooked in one type of alliance or position can shine in another. Just because somebody's great in one circumstance doesn't mean they're the same person in another. In CN, being in a different situation is almost like being a different person. We've all seen it happen a million times, on all sides of the fence.
I'd like to submit the possibility that RV, while probably one of the great Pacificans of our time (I remember him as quite possibly the most partisan NPO member ever to wear the AA), isn't nearly so effective outside of the NPO. Just something to think about.
@ Vox Populi
Let's just talk like nobody else is listening to this thread for a moment; take my alliance, and yours, and let's compare. We're pretty much made up of the same types of people, in terms of CN politics. Similar backgrounds, similar NS ranges. A lot of ex-\m/, supplemented with a few more people from high-average alliances who always kept arm's length from the Orders (in our case, a few Gramlins).
So why are you getting treated like this while we aren't? Because we knew that we needed to work very, very hard, to be allowed not only to create an alliance, but to thrive. We needed to go over the top, to turn our past images around and do exactly the opposite. You guys just sort of stayed away from the Orders, whereas we explicitly embraced them.
In terms of notoriety, I'd estimate that it would be about as eyebrow-raising to have either me or Starfox101 running any given alliance. But we explicitly avoided putting me in any foreign-facing situation for exactly that reason; whereas you put Starfox directly in the top leader spot.
I'm not gonna comment on K-Mart's history, 'cuz I've asked for links and haven't received them. Last time I knew before that, everybody who hates him now loved him then. I'll make up my mind after I review any relevant links, if they exist.
What I'm saying here is that sometimes you have to do more than just "enough." When it comes to turning around your reputation, you have to do as much you humanly can. You guys didn't. So your old enemies are your new enemies, at least by proxy. If you didn't do anything to change that, why be surprised?
@ NADC
OK, major figures from certain alliances are aiding a rogue who's attacking your protectorate. I don't know if you legally consider that a problem. To be honest, VP could ZI RV no matter how much aid he has; no one nation has enough aid slots to keep them afloat indefinitely, especially after they triple-declared outwards. Which means that those aid packages are pretty much just ceremonial support, in the long run. You could even fill up RV's remaining war slots; he doesn't have any legal protection. The only remaining question is:
How do you respond to that aid?
Look around. Look at the MDP web real close. You see anybody else who fits the potential to be the next big anti-Order candidate for 2008? Before you ask them anything, ask yourself why they should really have a problem if this incident was the spark that escalated to GW5.
A new, small alliance made up of individuals famous for running afoul of the Orders (hi, mom!) should crawl to the Orders for any protectorate status they want, not to somebody else completely. Otherwise, you're raising flags by taking them in. You should have known that.
@Dilber
You ever get that feeling after a night of drinking rum like your bloodstream is full of molasses? One of the greatest pleasures in the world is chugging a glass of water the next morning and literally feeling your capillaries re-liquefy.
-
More interesting questions are:
1) How do you define the term "morally just" and how to classify things as that
... and ...
2) Why should anybody care if something is "morally just," anyways?
-
IC: If a Global Court does come to exist Arenellia will act to subvert and zi whatever nations are appointed as judges.
I am in complete agreement with the sentiments expressed above.
However...
I think this is a fantastic idea, and that you should go for it.I am also in complete agreement with these sentiments.
:jihad:
-
Congratulations, UBS. I just now - now, mind you - "got" the connection between flag and acronym. I must have been completely out of it before.
-
Cool PIAT bloc!
-
Alliances will not empower any foreign body to rule over them. They are sovereign and they like it that way. In fact, if anyone appears to be getting anywhere with such a scheme, I think it highly likely that other alliances would view it as a threat and destroy it.
It might be possible to establish a court system as part of a bloc treaty with jurisdiction over the bloc members only, but that's as close as you could possibly get.
-
I read that whole thing.
lol, ok deeds, whether or not you're a chatty textwall-dropping maniac.
The Counts of Invicta Cackle Maniacally.
in Alliance Politics
Posted
Best. Topic. Title. Evar.
I don't even care what it's about, the title is that good.
Thanks, Invicta.