TheNakedJimbo

Even if this had nothing to do with my alliance I would still approve. Your command of the pirate dialect is without parallel, my good sir, and I salute you.

I want to have Lamuella's babies IRL. I am a man but I hope that we will find a way around this minor inconvenience.

The OP's complaint is really no different than the real world where politicians get a country into a war, and it's eighteen-year-old kids who do the dying.

The odds aren't really the salient point in this debate. The point is that the ally in question (probably) spied and is getting what they deserve for it. You have an unfortunate dichotomy: either blindly support your ally, which is pretty stupid, or sever on the grounds that someone who spies does not deserve your protection, no matter what words bind you to them. I personally prefer to honor principles rather than words. If you truly support TPF throughout all this, then wonderful and I applaud you for defending them. But if you're supporting a treaty, an inanimate object which has already been broken when TPF violated its anti-spying clause, then that's the opposite of noble. I hope what we've all learned from this is that every treaty should include anti-spying clauses so that no ally is ever put in a position where it has to choose between breaking its word or defending spies.

Oh, I know exactly what I'm talking about: shameless self-preservation, the strongest of all animal instincts

Just enough for the whole thing to blow over so they won't have to put their necks on the line, methinks.

I'll be eager to see your reaction when it's your nation about to be destroyed because your ally did something that every alliance in CN disapproves of. Your whole point hinges on the fact that allies are bound to defend their allies. But they're not. The majority of those treaties included anti-spying articles. The moment TPF spied, the treaty was already broken, and the "cooling down" period specified in the treaty does not apply, because the treaty was broken the moment TPF violated its terms. So that's five of the allies off the hook right away. As for the other three, well, I think that defending an alliance who is (probably) guilty of spying is the greater evil when compared to not honoring a treaty, but that's just me. I would think that the imperative to "do the right thing" - the condemnation of spying - is far greater than the alternative. A person's loyalty should always be to the Right Thing, not to words on a page.

Possible counterpoint: at least they will still be an alliance, and will not lose a big block of strength due to having an ally who does stupid things. That discernment would make them even more valuable to me if I was an alliance looking for allies. I think that, if any of these allies had known something like a spy scandal was coming, they would surely have written the treaty in a way that allowed them an instant sever in the event of spying. Perhaps they will be more careful in the future; perhaps it is their fault for assuming that TPF was a trustworthy and reliable partner, but I would not say it is their fault by breaking ranks with someone who (near as we can tell) was guilty of spying.

I completely agree with this as well. I sent Vilien a PM telling him how much I enjoyed debating with him and that I hope we get the chance to do it again sometime. Intelligent and articulate people are valuable to the game whether they agree with me or not. (Not all of the abolitionists have been such, of course, but neither have all the pro-choice folks either; such is humanity.)

Nobody here is mugging little old ladies. We're talking about raiding people who are perfectly capable of fighting back, defending themselves, and possibly even winning - and could easily, very easily, keep themselves from being victims at all if they merely joined an alliance. Feel free to go in search of a more accurate analogy that will let you feel smug and self-righteous.

Maybe this is true and maybe it's not; I don't have any way of knowing, other than believing one stranger's word over another. Perception matters more than reality sometimes. Perhaps this will teach you the value of the ancient proverb that says to flee even the appearance of evil.

TPF employed agents to obtain secret information. The fact that they failed to do so means that they're bad at spying, not that they weren't spies.

Thanks for the thoughtful analysis. It was very helpful.

Noooo Thanks for everything you do with the map though, Bob. It's great work and it's greatly appreciated.

This has already been pointed out, but protecting someone from raiding is not the only way to reach the end of "freedom to grow their nation." They can also join an alliance - which often times will allow them to grow a lot faster, because many alliances hand out joining / training aid, and provide people with whom the nation ruler can do tech trades for still more cash. If a person really wants to grow his nation in peace, any fool can see that joining an alliance is the right thing to do. A person does not have the right to two things which are mutually exclusive - he does not have a "right" to grow as fast as he would in an alliance without joining an alliance. You don't have a "right" to a house as safe as one that has a burglar alarm, without paying for a burglar alarm. If you want the security, you pay the price. Also ktarthan made a wonderful post, the likes of which I was going to write myself last night. Let's look at the situation a slightly different way. There are three possibilities. 1. Tech raiding is a valid moral philosophy and those who wish to curtail it are wrong for attempting to infringe it. This would, obviously, be okay with the tech raiders. 2. Tech raiding is valid, but so is the desire to abolish tech raiding. This is ktarthan's "all internal moralities" idea. This possibility is also okay with the tech raiders, because it still provides a moral ground for raiding, and the practice can continue. 3. Tech raiding is not a valid moral philosophy (for some reason which its opponents have failed to adequately explain in twelve pages of trying), and the abolitionists hold the most valid or only valid philosophy. Solely this, out of the three possibilities, is okay with the abolitionist - yet we can see that, in order for him to be in the right in his attempt to abolish tech raiding, he must not only prove that his position is more moral or correct than the other, but also prove that the other has zero credibility and merit to it. This is a substantial burden of proof. Now would be a good time for a review of the four systems of morality. When the abolitionists attempt to explain why tech raiding is always immoral, they will need to provide a reason why, not merely state it as if it's a fact. 1. Morality is socially defined, by the collective will of the majority. Problem: tech raiding used to be widely accepted in CN. 2. Morality is individually defined, and each person's is different (see: ktarthan). Problem: your individual morality does not supercede mine, so you cannot tell me what to do. 3. Morality is defined as "non-harm" to others. Problem: this philosophy is convoluted and hypocritical, because everything you do in this game keeps someone else, however indirectly, from getting what they want. See pages 4-7 of this thread. 4. Morality is an absolute standard which exists in the universe, usually explained as coming from a deity. Problem: CN has no deity, so this is not valid. The closest thing that CN has to a deity has programmed the game in such a way that tech raiding is possible and hiding in peace mode for a long time is crippling. What should this tell you about the way he intended the game to be played? No one has yet answered this question.