Ogaden
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Posts posted by Ogaden
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How's that a problem? Give them back to us then. No refund though.
Even though Somalia is technically under an arms embargo, everyone has been selling weapons to their pet faction in Somalia for the last 20 years.
Arms dealers have been making a mint. There have been attempts in the past to reduce the number of guns in the country through either voluntary programs or confiscation, but in a country as chaotic as Somalia having a good automatic rifle is insurance and security.
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Yes, why not adopt this since it's worked out so well for Somalia.
You'd be surprised, but Somalia's problems are legion. Dirt poor, frequent droughts AND frequent flooding, swimming in AK47s, hostile neighbors who keep the civil war going, etc etc.
The only things that actually work in Somalia are Xeer and the economy, for some reason those two things seem to be able to survive any hardship.
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So the point of the OP, and correct me if I am wrong, is for us to create a unified reparations system with pre-set digits based on some form of measurement for reasons that one has to pay reps (as in: war of this degree costs this many reps, roguenuking costs this many and that costs such) and name it all with Somali terms?
Why?
The last part is of course optional, in fact the whole thing is, it is to create more of a sense of law and equal justice to war reparations.
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Funny, I always thought inter-alliance and even intra-alliance issues here were closer to real-world international politics than anything else. Or are you saying that political wishy-washiness is just a high-tech version of tribal voodoo?
Tribalism is just nationalism on a much smaller scale, but it is a scale that is small enough that one can actually see it at work, whereas nationalism is such a broad thing that it is difficult to analyze. Tribal law is likewise international law on a much smaller scale as well, and it is much closer to the human experience (as international law is very impersonal and abstract) and more "raw", so lessons about how groups of alien nations interact with each other in times of peace and war can better be experienced.
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This is bookmarked for later. The amount of irony can prove to be enormous.
Also, good terms
Ahh yes, people always forget the circumstances of that quote.
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Stable is certainly a relative/subjective term. Anyway, interesting analysis and nice discussing it with you.
Likewise, it was my pleasure.
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Define unstable
Joking aside, I'm sure the fact that the world isn't static means that the global political landscape can never be completely static or stable either. But tC would certainly meet my definition for (relatively) stable, taking into account that nothing's perfect.
I suppose perspective is everything, we both look at the same entity and see two different things.
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If they're not directly represented, they're at least tied to it through multiple treaties - sometimes even multiple treaties binding the same two nations.
It sounds like you're implying that tC members are similar to delegates that represent the will of their own, separate blocs. I'm sure that's true to some extent. However, I wouldn't say it's clear that the primary power can be traced back to the constituents. Many believe that a sub-group within tC - or even one alliance in particular - represents the driving force for its actions, and the outside blocs (or individually treatied alliances) just get dragged along.
That is why it is unstable.
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So in Somalia the leaders of rival and warring clans all enjoy friendly relations even while their clans slaughter each other? There's a clan that has dominated Somalia, without challenge, for about 3/4ths of its history?
Yup!
The Somali civil war actually began as a personal dispute between Mohamed Siad Barre (the president at the time) and Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed (the president from 2004-last week) over Mohamed taking power. Both men are Darood, one clan, who have ruled Somalia for most of it's history.
The dispute was that Abdullahi's subclan, the Majerteen, usually ruled, so Mohamed Siad Barre (a Marehan Darood) seizing power was considered by him to be incredible cheek. Abdullahi staged a coup and when that didn't work he became an Ethiopian proxy and eventually took power 35 years later.
Mohamed and his buddies ruled as a military cabal until he started to lose it in his old age and threw his old pal from the Habargedir Hawiye in prison for supposedly plotting to kill him, Mohamed Farah Aidiid. Mohamed Farah Aidiid raised a large army and defeated Mohamed Siad Barre but another Hawiye (an Abgaal Hawiye) declared himself president after Mohamed Siad Barre left the country, thus making the two largest Hawiye subclans hostile to one another, so even though they were from the same clan and had been allies only days previously, Mohamed Farah Aidiid attacked his erstwhile ally Ali Mahdi.
All this petty fighting over personal disputes cost over a million lives and left Somalia in such a state of anarchy it's still going on. It's all just old men who actually hang out and chit chat in their spare time.
Like I said, incredible parallels.
What these warlords take advantage of is the establishment, fostering and nurturing of Cuqdad. Once their clan hates their rivals for no good reason, they don't need an excuse to go to war against them for the personal advancement of the warlord. The Qabiil system also encourages this behavior since the leader of a Qabiil has the unwavering support of his clan, who are by Xeer his dependants and clients, a relationship they almost always abuse for monetary gain.
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James did you recently sign up for a class on Somalia or something?
No, that's been a hobby of mine for years. Fascinating country, really.
No, it was the parallels I saw between clan politics and inter-alliance politics here. Even the forum bashing is similar.
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Only from an NPO applicant. Why am I not supprised?
Come now, I've followed the rise and fall of FAN, and it was primarily caused by the fact that FAN refused to establish themselves as a hegemony, and then declared themselves against the concept of hegemony in general.
In Somalia there is a word for this as well, Mooryan. Independent, heavily armed operators who bowed to noone and lived free and unrestrained.
They were eventually destroyed, as was FAN, by those who viewed such behavior as an unwelcome disruption to the establishment of their nascent hegemonies.
Your fall, I am afraid, was preordained by fate.
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Isn't this what MK just finished doing?
Interesting, what is the codified MK system for reparations?
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[OOC]For a good reason i'd say according to this a billionare would be able to kill millions of people with out any consequcnes other than paying money
IC: I am sure this is already in place in the form of reps though
[OOC: It is very rich leaders who pay blood money, but they don't usually do the killing, their Qabiil members do, but as they are clients of the rich clan leaders the rich clan leaders are obliged to take responsibility for the actions of their Qabiil members. This is the double-edged sword of Qabiil, obligations roll uphill along with money and power.]
Perhaps, but it is not codified, and there are many situations where there is no way for a nation to make amends.
Creating an actual legal system for reparations, with values attached to crimes, would allow nations to know whether terms are fair or not.
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I've seen a shorthand version of this model:
Step 1: Who's not in/tied to the Continuum but large enough to create an independent power cluster?
Step 2: Who's left?
I do not see the Continuum as being stable. It is an attempt to maintain global order and prevent another Great War, but is by no means a surefire method of doing so.
1) not all major power blocs are represented in the Continuum
2) most Continuum members are also leaders of other power blocs, making the Continuum more of a "League of Nations" than a bloc
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So you're proposing that Planet Bob adopt Sharia law?
This will go over like a turd in a punch bowl.
The opposite actually, this is what Islamists are trying to stop in the Islamic world.
Xeer is tribal law, and I think CyberNations is a tribal society, as I demonstrated in my previous thread.
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I believe that conflict resolution on CyberNations could be codified in several ways, by adopting two concepts and an arbitration process.
These two concepts are:
Blood Money and
Clientage
In Somali traditional Qabiil society, petty crimes are resolved by the ordinary Islamic judicial system, but war and murder are resolved through Xeer. By this, the lives lost are valued and blood money demanded. If the offending Qabiil is small and weak, often this clan cannot afford to pay the blood money and become client Qabiil.
I propose that offenses that would otherwise lead to VI, PVI or EVI upon an offending nation, instead could be resolved through the offending nation either paying blood money proportionate to their crime or, if they cannot afford this sum, be forced to tech farm ($2 million in exchange for 200 tech per week) for the victorious alliance for a period of time proportionate to their crime.
After the sum/servitude has been paid in full, justice will have deemed to have been served and the slate wiped clean.
A set blood money price could be demanded for a variety of crimes. Rogue nuclear attacks, instigating inter-alliance wars, being a tool on the CN boards, etc.
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But as I noted earlier, this does not demonstrate politics to be zero-sum. It simply demonstrates a dual power situation -- where two great powers seek to gather up all available resources -- to be unsustainable.
This does not necessarily mean that it isn't zero sum, it just can't be used as evidence that it is.
Thus the theoretical nature of Qabiil theory.
I shall develop this theory until, hopefully, I have an applicable political model through which I could theoretically predict conflicts.
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Likewise James.
I would go further and suggest that all such circumstances are a challenge to the established hegemony, since the alternative is two great powers appearing magically out of thin air. But that one is up and coming and that the other is established does not change the nature of my argument [1]. There is always (and will always be) a power -- a hegemony -- that holds a dominant position vis-a-vis global resources, and if there is another great power then it can only be so by its making inroads into this position. Whether or not it is a conscious 'challenge' it is here that the aforementioned conflict arises and it is here that the build up to a great war begins.
Precisely, thus the zero-sum aspect.
Which makes the current standing of the existing hegemonial Qabiil very, very interesting.
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Without weighing in directly on whether or not inter-alliance politics can be considered 'zero sum', I would suggest that a major war occurs at such a time simply due to the irreconcilable contradictions that are created when two great powers are seeking to harness all of the available resources. Such a situation is intolerable for a prolonged period as it brings the parties into direct conflict on all manner of issues.
This does not necessarily make the resources zero-sum in the longer term since it is a matter of conflict of immediate interests.
Hello Vladimir, I am pleased to make your acquaintance.
You are precisely correct that many conflicts between large Qabiil occur over such circumstances, but I would argue that these are the exception to the more common situation of defeating a challenge to the more established Qabiil's hegemony.
While resources (at least in CN) are limitless, political situations are binary, one is either weaker or stronger, holding hegemony or under hegemony.
Someone aware of Qabiil theory will instantly recognize that the delicate balance between the existing hegemony-holding Qabiil is requisite upon one of these Qabiil not moving into a hegemony over the hegemonies, as this would cause the hegemony-holding Qabiil to become Langaab themselves.
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The fact that we can create an endless supply of infrastructure and tech, as well as endlessly trade our resources, suggests it's not zero-sum to me.
Now, if there were global limits to those resources...that could make for some much more interesting gameplay.
There are not, however, an endless supply of top ranking spots on the alliance and nation rankings, which is where the zero sum game comes in.
Only the top ranking alliances and nations can dictate the course of inter-alliance politics, so effectively the top ranking nations and alliances have hegemony over all other nations and alliances.
Effectively speaking this establishes the dichotomy that exists in Somalia between Samaal (the strong, large and powerful Qabiil) and the Sab (the weak, small and vulnerable Qabiil). Sab can only do the wrong thing unless they voluntarily become Langaab. Their Diya (blood money) is less than half of that of a Samaale, and laws that Sab can be punished for violating, Samaal can just get their Qabiil to threaten their way out of. A Sab cannot get justice against a Samaal, but a Samaal can kill a Sab with virtual impunity and, if punished, only has to pay a little bit of blood money.
Even though the Sab actually outnumber the Samaal, Sab have no power in Somalia, all power lies in the Samaal.
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The war is in an attempt for one group to make the game a zero-sum game, but that does not mean that it necessarily is.
Then you subscribe to a much more optimistic and Utopian view of CN than I do.
That's the wonderful thing about political theory, no-one is right or wrong, what matters is if your ideas have insights into ways to advance your nation.
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CN is definitely not a zero sum game.
The game is not, no. It's the politics of CN that is a zero sum game.
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Your analysis is flawed. It assumes that the Cyberverse is a zero sum game and it is not, even by relative standards. For example, suppose that no one in the Cyberverse engages in tech trading except for two nations. Those two nations would grow faster than everyone else, and both would be relatively stronger than everyone else, and neither one would lose out. Additionally, two alliances can make a joint announcement - let's say they sign an MDP - that will bring greater benefit to both of them. To other alliances thereby lose out? There are so many alliances now that greater security for two alliances might easily mean diddly-squat to another.
Then why is there a major war every time an up and coming Qabiil challenges the position of an established Qabiil?
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While this is true to an extent, it doesn't explain the rise of protectorates.
It could perhaps be explained by the mechanism, that mid-level Qabiils, while seeing rise of new Qabiils' gained prestige away from the greater Qabiils (relatively), does not see them as a direct threat to mid-level Qabiils in general as long as a state of degeneration is not caugth. Appears like a mixture of self-deception, hopeful thinking and intuitive "hey, this feels like a good move" action. Hope being the decisive factor in the motivational array.
Perhaps the religous elements could draw a parallel with the general attitude towards some international policies. An amalgam of opinions, and the strengths (weights) of those opinions, concerning tech raiding, eternal ZI, justice of casus bellii in general, and stuff like that.
On the other hand, those are more of political attitudes than religious, but also religion and politics always mix.
e: answered the latest
I believe the protectorates are primarily motivated by two things.
1) the desire of the large Qabiil to absorb aligned Qabiil by making them into Langaab, or dependants.
2) the desire of small Qabiil to be able to either seize Biliqo with impunity (behind a gigantic shield) or to guard against others doing the same to them
It's a mixture of greed and fear and the feeling that if you don't maintain your hegemonial position, which requires constant sustained geometric growth in order to maintain your relative position, someone else will and make you Langaab.
What many have realized is what Somali realized ages ago, in that one Qabiil cannot alone hold hegemony, but it effectively can if it vastly increases its strength either through a vast confederation (which is highly unstable and usually falls apart, see The Initiative) or from a vast array of dependent and subservient Langaab Qabiil (but of course on Cybernations they haven't discovered the fun pitfall of that yet).
Vox Populi and the Global Terror phenomena
in Global Politics
Posted · Edited by James Dahl
Vox Populi is a strange organization. Two ex-Emperors, allying with a bunch of hard-done-by countries who hate the NPO (and NpO but they don't talk about that) primarily for the actions of those alliances taken under the orders of their newfound allies.
Strange bedfellows indeed.