Thrasymachus
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Posts posted by Thrasymachus
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I think it would be interesting to see IRON at the top of the Sanction Race. They got a ways to go, but they're gaining, I think. I still think you guys were better off Independent, but, it's okay. Also, I'm glad that you guys finally got a bigger version of your flag up in an announcement somewhere. I had always wondered if the text had said "IRON" or "IRAN", and what the text below it was. Now, I am curious as to what "Ferro Credimus" means. Halp? D:
I think it would be interesting to see Vox write a charter that formalizes their principles and focuses their struggle around those principles. I realize you think anarchism is cool and don't have a government, but that's okay, too.
(I think most take it as meaning "in IRON, we believe" but I think literally it means "in sword, we believe.
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This community went down the drain
I love LJ's positive attitude. Oops, can't be sarcastic here and I must address his alliance.
I love how the Mushroom Kingdom persists through great adversity.
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chefjoe's application of the Geneva Convention to CyberNations is absolutely ricrunkulous and silly beyond belief.
Does Valhalla wish to have a seat at my CN United Nations? Charter's almost done you could be a founding signatorrrrrrrryyyyyy. You know you wannnnnnaaaaa.
No. Just no.
Chefjoe replied in those terms because I mentioned CN lacks anything remotely resembling Geneva-type protocols, which may or may not have been of assistance in this case.
If anyone is ridiculous, it is me. I'd think a member of Vox, of all alliances, would appreciate someone noting that we have no consistent standards other than "might makes right."
Also, Geneva Conventions =/= the UN and I find it unfortunate that any time someone appeals to a standard of law over arbitrary action some think this means that would require a UN.
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IRON: Slow and steady growth and honor pay off.
Zenith has awesome leadership.
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The GGA has a lot of nice people like andre27 in it.
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What does your avatar mean to you?
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I admire how you admire me (even though I'm no longer in Vox). I like people who like me. I like you.
Oops, I did not know that. In that case, I love the humor in your new alliance name.
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I like how Vox Populi speaks out where others are afraid to.
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(Doitzel @ Nov 17 2008, 02:16 AM) *
It is the silence of dissent.
I can't believe you answered seriously in this thread.
I can't believe I opened this thread and saw Dilber and Doitzel.
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You know negotiations have gone down hill when people start throwing dictionaries at each other...
I thought a debate of terms signified the beginning of debate.
Maybe a new topic, one that does not mix in the peculiarities of this Aeternos case, might feature a debate on why some people think a treaty is needed to go to war or... why any nation who goes to war without an alliance backing them up is termed a rogue?
At any rate, enjoying the reading here
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Simple Bob. Read here and see the difference of what it is.
Merc actions have nothing to do with any alliance DoW, one man or 1000 man. Has nothing to do with fighting the war on one side or the other. Has nothing to do with the WAR that was happening.
AA accepted a contract to nuke.
He nuked.
A mercenary is a person who takes part in an armed conflict, who is not a national or a party to the conflict, and is "motivated to take part in the hostilities essentially by the desire for private gain and, in fact, is promised, by or on behalf of a party to the conflict, material compensation substantially in excess of that promised or paid to combatants of similar ranks and functions in the armed forces of that Party" (Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Convention of August 1949).
So his circumstances are like no one else you try to relate to in your post Bob other then in the general sense like others he fired a nuke. Which is about the same allusion as a police officer firing a weapon stopping a robbery and a criminal firing one while doing a robbery. Yes they both fired their weapons but are far different in the circumstances and penalties. As such he is being dealt with differently.
OOC/Consideration as a fellow player:
The premise of cybernations is that every player is a "national" since he or she is the accepted ruler of a nation. There is no player on planet bob "who is not a national." Without any international standard that applies to all nations, aligned or unaligned, there is no such thing "as private gain," since every ruler "plays" for national interests.
If our aim is to prove a player is a national leader running a rogue state, that is something quite different and not addressed by this definition. Lacking any such international agreement, it is natural that we keep returning to Planet Bob's Vae Victis "common law" tradition.
If we were to consider the Geneva treaties on the conduct of war on Planet Bob, this would raise compelling gameplay questions since nearly every alliance in the game treats their alliance members as national subjects rather than as sovereign nation treaty signatories. An obvious example is I cannot be both a member of IRON and Valhalla, even though our alliances are friends and our nations share common national interests and international agendas.
So here we have a fundamental dilemma. If we were to attempt to adapt the Geneva protocols to the conduct of war on Planet Bob, we'd have to rethink how we treat each other as leaders of nation-states outside of the current system that considers alliance members as alliance citizens.
Thanks for taking this point seriously by referring to the Geneva treaties in this context, and I look forward to corrections by you or anyone here, if any of my assumptions or conclusions appear misguided.
In-character consideration:
Chefjoe, your continued engagement of these issues shows that when it comes to protecting the interests of your alliance, by the prevailing standards of Planet Bob diplomacy, you are a great alliance leader. When it comes to following the accepted methods of conducting a war, Planet Bob has no consistent standards to use to judge you. Frankly, I empathize with you here since this places you in the precarious position of standing up for your alliance's members more than some other alliance leaders might be willing to risk.
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I believe your mistaking zi for pzi or that ezi thing. Should someone decide to leave the game after a zi, that is their own decision.
Whether this is ZI or PZI remains unclear from this thread and his surrender attempt thread.
When an alliance tells someone they will not be allowed to surrender, most read that as PZI.
Is Valhalla saying he will not be allowed to surrender ever? I highly doubt that, but the lack of clarification creates an unfortunate impression of arbitrariness.
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Wheels of justice?
Who determines if the powerful's actions are just?
Who deals out this justice you are talking about?
The powerful and the powerful.
To put this in perspective, what happens if the NPO or IRON perform acts of injustice. Who calls them on it?The NPO and IRON, respectively and their allies.
Who has the power to force them to cease doing an unjust act?They and their allies.
To bring up the other side, perhaps the Continuum is the first step to a "Geneva convention" or a "UN". They make the rules.Their support would be important for certain. However, it would have to be presented in such a way that it woud both preserve and promote their self-interest, just as it does yours.
The NPO recently changed the rules of warfare, calling for members of alliances that the NPO had declared war on, to get out of peace mode and take a 5 day beating or they were to be ineligible for surrender terms and would be ZI'ed (or PZI'ed, I forget which). They have a practice of sanctioning those members of alliances at war with them for using nuclear weapons against NPO members as "nuke rogues", even if such nuclear attacks were fully sanctioned by said alliance-at-war-with-NPO. They have proven they can make the rules and change them as they see fit.A lot of intertwined issues here, but yes with a few exceptions.
The problem is what happens if someone not the NPO or a non ally of the NPO or their allies allies try to do these same things? What happens is nothing, because they cannot enforce the "rules" on other alliances.Possibly. It depends on the nature of the conflict.
The Continuum can say what is acceptable behaviour and what is not, but if some Continuum alliances perform what is seen as "Unjust behaviour" who can call them on it?The Continuum itself and other allies informally
There isn't anyone with that amount of power.There isn't anyone with the power people think the most powerful have, either.
Due to the war mechanics there isn't anyone who can "win" a war against the Continuum, so we are back where we started with the powerful making the rules for everyone, while not being held accountable to them by anything other than their own internal policies, which may or may not coincide with their set behavioral norms.You are not at war with the Continuum and wars on the Continuum in the current environment only add to its strength.
By the way, you didn't come across as harsh or hostile, and I hope I didn't either, because that was not my intention.Cool and hope I did not come across negatively with these responses either. Things are not this simple and I hope to be able to write more on this later in more developed terms that make more sense.
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Might makes right means that if the most powerful an alliance is the more things they can do.
Valhalla is well connected and in a military alliance with all of the most powerful alliances in the game. Which means that since they are powerful, someone who isn't so well connected isn't listened to and can safely be ignored while the powerful dictate what happens.
Valhalla is well connected, Valhalla decided that this AA person is a nuclear rogue, and due to clauses in the Mobious Accords, which is the treaty that binds the Continuum together, nobody in the Continuum can, publicly, disagree too harshly with Valhalla's actions here.
Besides, nuclear rogues are universally hated here. I don't believe this person is a nuke rogue because the nukes he dropped were a result of his entrance into the war, but I don't make the rules. I can disagree all I want, but the powerful can keep on safely ignoring me and anyone else who speaks out against their actions, seeing as we have no power to stop them.
So, Might makes Right.
My Geneva-esque post had nothing to do with Valhalla or even Aeternos, but with codifying the major alliances' currently accepted practices, so we might have some publicly acknowledged and perhaps even codified standards from which to speak.
The wheels of justice turn slowly and unpredictably, but they turn.
Sorry if I came across as harsh with you.
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That will never work. The discussion has been had before, because frankly there are situations exactly like this one in every major war in recent times. Some situations where someone thinks they surrendered completely so they come out of peace mode only to get rolled for not surrending to a certain group. Other situaitons where people in the POW camps get hit while complying fully with the individual surrender terms.
There isn't anyone with the will to stand up for the people who need it, because frankly Might does make Right.
Then I don't think you know what might makes right even means. And no I am not flaming you here, so hold that reaction. And watch it happen.
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I never states morals anywhere. I guess that makes me a practitioner
Oh noes/osnap!
In that case, good luck answering those other fellers' questions.
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Delicately, she extracted the fragile scroll. Her eyes flowed in a serpentine path across the parchment. The eyes, which appeared black moments before, now appeared closer to auburn as they shined with an inner light that became more intense as she continued down its length. The wind picked up once more, carrying with it faint sounds, distant howls from the mountains. She seemed not to notice, engrossed in the text as she was. I was determined to let her keep at it until she had had her heart's content.
She finished. Her chest rose and fell with fervor, rosebud lips were parted slightly; the reading had exerted her. I asked, calmly, but with a purposeful intent, “A beautiful work, yes?”
Will there be a Gospel of Zahg sharing what he recollects from her reading in this dream?
Curious.
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Actually, neo-realists would agree with this assertion. One of the big differences between neo-realism and realism in the international system is that neo-realists also believe in softpower. Furthermore, it goes further then realism when defining the international system as anarchic, and that states will go much further to secure power. Coercive diplomacy is most certainly legal in the eyes of a neo-realist when defending your core interests, in that of survival and power.
It seems we might be talking about two different neorealists here, the neorealist academics who are trying to describe our international system and the political practitioners who are trying to "work" it.
You are correct that a pure neorealist practitioner will stylize and present his methods as legal, but not in the sense of legal that most of us recognize. He is not concerned about whether his view of diplomacy fits within some "valid" or "legal" paradigm, unless such a fit is important to the efficacy of his special brand of "diplomacy." A neorealist practitioner will take advantage of any system's structures as much as he can, precisely because his methodology qua methodology rejects any moral consideration of right and wrong.
A neorealist academic can justify this approach in productive terms, but he simply cannot defend it morally without rejecting his underlying assumptions. Well, he can, but then he is a practitioner and not an academic
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So, rather than telling him what he can't do, what do you propose he can do in lightof you stating private and public channels have not or will not work?
Cases like this make me think all of us, from nations to alliances, victors and vanquished, great and small, could profit greatly from the adoption of some non-binding treaties like those signed at the Geneva conventions.
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Actually, conflict is part of diplomacy. The threat of force is a valid part part of diplomacy, and the use of force is an extension of diplomacy. It's called coercive diplomacy, and is primarilly used by neo-realists.
I'll agree with everything but your assertion that its practice makes it "a valid part of diplomacy."
Given their relativist foundation, I doubt most neorealists would agree with this assertion, since it speaks both normatively and prescriptively.
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If private channels don't work for immediate peace, you should definitely come to the OWF to make sure peace takes even longer.
Yeah, after taking another look at this, there seems to be more than meets the eye here. Guess I just always thought of him as an IRON old-timer, just like BnT, and figured they could work something out.
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Same thing, their all puppets taking the commands from the NPO.
If you read the OP and the surrender thread he linked us to, you will see how silly that sounds.
This has nothing to do with puppetry and everything to do with when some alliances will accept surrenders and others might not... or might.
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Here's to hoping private negotiations will recognize his demonstrated will to surrender.
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Between the people that really don't care that would post no matter who said it and Vox who would be super attracted to it if a bigger alliance posted it I am willing to bet this thread would be even bigger if posted by a more established alliance.
I'll have to do some searching, but this is not the first time I have read an Alliance announcement upset about one errant recruitment message. This is the first time I have seen a reaction like this.
I have no dog in this fight, just struck me as interesting.
Say something nice about the alliance of the person above you
in Open World Forum
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I like how OTF makes principled stands and how their members make thoughtful posts on these forums.