[Creating a New Economic Paradigm]

Any tl;dr for those of us who don't have time to watch it yet? All I'm getting from your post is "FUTURE SOON" and a vague reference to what could be referred to as another industrial revolution, and I don't have time to watch the video at the moment.

[An Interesting News Report]

I fully agree with jerdge - but I think it's also important to differentiate between slander and genuine criticism. In this particular case, it doesn't look like there's any confusion; one comment of encouragement should never draw this sort of fire. But I think it's also important to be able to level with someone and tell them that something is wrong with what they're doing. That sort of thing is becoming harder to do in our society because so many criticisms are taken as insults somehow.

I guess I'm saying that any system supporting free speech should especially protect critical speech that has a basis in fact.

[The wager.]

Since you'll be in the neighborhood anyway, I hear Forks, WA is a great center for paranormal... stuff, anyway. And Bigfoot is supposed to live in Washington or British Columbia, I think. Right?

[The Fundamentals of Alliancehood]

Since the collective goals of the members are more important than the goals of the alliance as an entity, an alliance's success can be measured by how much it adhered, both in attempt and in reality, to these values.

What makes you say this? I won't argue that these values are normally important, but I know that I can cite at least one clear example to the contrary (Vox Populi) and several you could argue have set aside these goals, at least as they are presented here, for the sake of doing something else. And there are examples of alliances that more or less aim for these goals and yet still suffer - I'll offer up TDO as an example. TDO, at one point, had several hundred members. They have hovered between 100 and 200 for some time, while other alliances, such as IRON, MHA, and NPO have maintained much higher numbers. IRON and NPO both managed to keep higher amounts of members even during devastating war on more than one occasion, and even though MHA has lost a significant number of people in the last couple months, they're only just now sitting at the 400 mark.

[Ask me anything]

What is your personal opinion on each of the sanctioned alliances? In what ways might each of those alliances improve?

[12-07]

I really like the look of this now! Good job.

[12-06]

My suggestion is to move to the same color scheme as the other chart - one color for each side in war - because team color isn't overly important. Also, if you made little red triangles to substitute the arrows, it'd make it easier to see who declared on who at a glance.

[Survivor 9]

Heh, (almost) all of our slots are synced, and our tech day happens to fall during the dates for the 61st-72nd round. But if we advance, we'll probably end up importing pretty close to zero tech during the next round of the competition.

Given that this might affect some alliances, would it be possible to adjust the dates so that each set has ten days, with overlapping competitions for tribes? I don't want to make it too hard or anything, but it seems to make sense.

[Vacation at the beach, crab stew and many other foodstuffs]

I think the term is pescaterian, though I probably have the spelling wrong. Let your friends know their true label!

[d2m fixes everything]

An interesting thing to note in Shan's stats is that it indicates at the very least 2-3 years of decent nation creation and retention before the game threatens to get too sparsely populated. If we're trying to come up with a solution as a game community, we do have some time to fact check and do it right.

[War Stats]

If it's easy, a NS chart by coalition would be pretty cool.

It would probably be five minutes of additional work per update - basically making an excel spreadsheet and uploading it to imageshack. It would just be a static image - nothing like what UE used to have.It also probably wouldn't give the best indication of how a war is going - alliances joining or leaving would mask how much damage is actually being done.

If you've got a spreadsheet with all the data kept in it, you could just have the chart of the alliances currently involved - it would give a good indicator of how well the coalition will continue to perform. So if you had GPA, TDO, and WTF in the war, and GPA left, the next update of a chart would only reflect TDO and WTF throughout the war, completely ignoring GPA's influence. It would be easier to predict how the war at present will continue.

[War Stats]

You mean there isn't a global war developing right now? Darn it, I got all excited for global meltdown.

As far as the stats go, maybe a date for each pair of warring alliances indicating when that individual pair's war started, including the score for each on that day (kind of like what Schad is suggesting).

[The Issue of Land Claims]

For a point of reference, one of the reasons that Native Americans make their land claims is based upon their religion. For Christianity, a religion most people here are familiar with, the important parts of the religion in a nutshell are the ceremony, the scripture, and living by the moral guidelines set forth within the religion (each of these are more or less important given the denomination). Native religion, on the other hand, is very site-based, and there are many sacred sites that were taken away from them way back when when the governments here signed treaties with them, based on a lack of understanding of the importance of actual physical sites to their religion.

I'm not going to try to argue one way or the other on this one, as far as what is right to do now, but I did want to provide some context to why Native Americans press so hard for land sometimes.

[Time Changes]

I remember when TOOL was fluctuating members in the hundreds for a while. You guys have changed a lot since then.

[Fed Going Bankrupt?]

Well, I'm not going to claim to be an expert on economics, but one thing that I definitely absorbed from the econ course I took last year is that inflation, in and of itself, is not bad. Inflation rates between 1? and 3? percent are signs of a healthy economy. If it gets higher than that, the inflation affects reliability in prices. If we experience deflation, that's also a sign that the economy isn't exactly in the best place.

Overall, I don't think it affects what you're saying much; just be aware that inflation rising isn't inherently bad.

[Survivor 8]

I voted regular, but by regular I take it to mean at about the pace we've been having special events. I also took it to mean that we had something going on, not necessarily the same thing going on each time. I voted before I read...

I like the variety, though. The Olympics format was really cool, I thought. Survivor is fine as well, but I think if that one was done too regularly it would lose its luster.

[LANCE (Libertarian & Anarchist Non-aggression, Coordination, & Economic Assistance) Pact]

What does "fraud" mean in the first article? I mean, leaving it ambiguous like that certainly gives you flexibility, but if you're defining aggression, you need to be more careful. With the three options you have there, you are bound to have left something out that very well could warrant an aggressive (but still justified) action. You could even make the argument that a period of stagnant peace warrants some sort of aggressive "fixing" of the peace, on the basis that having a particular type of war would keep people around.

[A suggestion that I have not suggested yet for various reasons, but will probably do so after getting some discussion going.]

Well... from what I remember, every single time that someone suggests expanding aid slots in any way, the response is that it will increase the inflation of reps. Chances are, the next people up on the chopping block are going to end up paying more than the last ones anyway, so unless the aid slots are expanded to the point where even the top nations could be sucked dry sending out aid, the inflation will just increase.

[Entry 3 "an Intelectual middle class"]

So people with at least a bachelor's in one or more of a selection of liberal arts degrees? Also, citation for evidence to some of the claims made would be nice. You *do* make quite a lot of unsubstantiated claims, and without that, it's hard to take this seriously. Finally, correct capitalization and punctuation would be nice. You actually did quite nicely on the spelling, especially for having the other errors there.

[Class Divisions in Cybernations]

The analysis of CN culture is quite good, but because it's so easy to move between the different roles, I wouldn't consider them to be 'classes'. Inactive vs Active is largely a matter of how much time you feel like devoting to the game, it's an entirely personal choice, which definitely doesn't feel like a class division. There might be some mileage in the 'power players' being a class, as the same people keep turning up again and again in different alliances and roles, and it's quite difficult to break into (you essentially need to get the endorsement of one or more members of the class.

I actually came to a similar conclusion after talking to several people in #nsa (including Vladimir and LordValentine, among others); while the divisions I found are divisions, they aren't class divisions, unless I want to destroy the meaning of the world class.

[Class Divisions in Cybernations]

Yeah, but my professor isn't going to look that far into these forums, I don't think.

EDIT: Plus, MK doesn't seem to have lost members at the same rate that many other alliances have. The point would have to be adjusted to indicate that the players stayed around as opposed to leaving, since gradual attrition is the state of things these days.

[My analasys of the war]

I have a hunch that if RoK simply desired to start a war, it would be because of NSO's polarizing nature, not just because they're weaker. I don't know whether I believe RoK/Hoo wanted war or whether Hoo was genuinely that offended by NSO's actions, but there are better targets to attack if you simply want some war practice.

[Why Ragnarok is Wrong: A Comprehensive Study]

I've seen at least two of my friends on steam playing it, so I presume not. I haven't downloaded it, and probably won't, at least for a while.

[An Analysis of the Current Situation]

Yup. I saw a post somewhere about how many people had posted their own analysis. I figured I'd play that up.

[World's first space dive]

You know, I get a little nervous around heights too, but once it's high enough, it doesn't really bother me anymore. It might have something to do with having a harder time associating the fall from extreme heights with the landing that isn't quite so present.