HM Solomon I

Thanks.

Well this thread turned out to be completely pointless.

Again, that's not the point of this entry. lol

Justice in this context is a term referring to whatever systems we use to provide negative consequences to actions we deem worthy of such a response. It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with ethics. I merely use the term for lack of a better one that succinctly describes what it is I'm trying to talk about.

Something that isn't often talked about in this world is how alliances administer justice. Despite the dearth of discussion though, it's actually a crucial subject when it comes to understanding our world because the way justice is delivered across the Cyberverse has a great deal of bearing on how community norms are enforced and alliances maintain control. So to aid in understanding, this entry will focus on the different generalized systems for administering justice and will analyze their relative strengths and weaknesses. The first type of justice is arguably the simplest of the lot: justice by decree. In a justice by decree system, one individual or small group of individuals holds the power to decree punishments, and can usually delegate some or all of this power to others in the alliance. The second type of system is the one most familiar in RL: court justice. In a court justice system, one individual or a group of individuals is appointed or elected to administer justice in the alliance. This court decides on punishments, but unlike in a decree justice system, the court is bound by higher law to administer justice consistent with said higher law's guarantees of rights and due process; there can also be a process by which one can appeal the decision of the court to another authority within the alliance. This limits the court's power and strengthens the rights of individual alliance members. The last type of system is the one most associated with socialist alliances: direct democratic justice. In a direct democratic justice system, all alliance members have the right to decide on some or all punishments. So now that we have this framework of the basic types of justice systems in the Cyberverse, the next step is to look at their relative strengths and weaknesses and then perhaps formulate an approach that might be better than any one of those above. Justice by decree systems have one huge leg up on all the others: efficiency. Nothing is more efficient than one individual or small group just deciding who should be punished and how. No trial, no need for procedures to be followed, just one person (or a few) deciding. However, the problem with this system also stems from this massive efficiency: potential for abuse. Since there is no chance of appeal, and one person or a small group holds all the power, if at some point a particularly malevolent person or people come(s) into that position or those positions, the results could be disastrous for the alliance. Court justice systems provide for strong individual rights, which vastly reduces the potential for abuse which is so high in decree justice systems. This reduced risk of abuse comes at a significant cost though: much less in the way of efficiency. The need for detailed, standardized, and consistently enforced procedures, due process, lengthy trials and the like to ensure rights are fully respected makes court justice systems the most inefficient of the three. Direct democratic justice systems are very participatory as they ensure just about every member can be involved in administering justice. This creates a collegial atmosphere and possibly keeps members better informed as to how the alliance handles those who misbehave. The downside is that a vote or other kind of large-scale decision process is required to actually enact consequences, which can be costly and time consuming to organize, even in smaller alliances, and there is almost as much of a potential for abuse as in decree justice systems. Whereas decree systems suffer from this potential due to their concentration of power, direct democratic systems suffer from it for the opposite reason but to a similar degree. There is a risk that mob justice may prevail, in which vocal members get enough support to punish someone who in fact has done nothing wrong or get a member severely punished for what is typically considered a minor offense. Given this, none of these systems are perfect, and none ever will be perfect. No system can be, but the question is could one design a better system. Each of the above has clear pros and cons, so it may be possible to construct a hybrid system that minimizes the cons and maximizes the pros. Consider a Court-Decree system. In a court-decree system, one person person or a small group holds the power to decree punishments. Unlike in a pure decree system though, the offenses are specifically defined in advance and ex post facto punishment is not allowed, so the one or ones decreeing punishment don't also get to decide in the moment what is punishable. And on top of this, all those being considered for punishment have the right to defend themselves and know what they are accused of having done. This does not mean they have the right to a fair trial or the right to counsel; evidence of the offense isn't even necessary, though the authority may decide not to punish without it in specific cases. The defense they make need not even be public (though if it is private one third-party witness would need to be present just to keep everyone honest) nor does it need to have a fixed duration. Anything that is not listed here would be decided by the authority determining the punishment (or lack thereof, as the case may be). The point is, this avoids the potential for mob justice found in direct democratic systems (the participatory aspect isn't essential to justice and is only desirable in actual direct democracies), keeps much of the efficiency of decree systems (since it avoids lengthy trials and keeps procedures to a bare minimum), while providing just enough protections to mitigate much of the risk of abuse. This system isn't perfect obviously, but it would seem it's a fair bit better than the others, all other things being equal. And of course, this doesn't take into account alliances' histories and cultures, this is a model system and is not designed for a specific alliance.

Sigging ASAP. :D

No it shouldn't. That only works on the open market. But when you're dealing with internal alliance tech dealing, that is usually not the case. Many alliances regulate the the rate paid for tech to ensure the alliance overall benefits the most, which makes sense as working towards the common good is in large part the point of alliances. For an alliance, the most important factor in tech dealing isn't how much it costs but rather how much tech can the alliance overall move per unit time. If an alliance uses a higher rate, cash will take up more of its slots thereby reducing the flow of tech. Everyone loses in this scenario because the alliance will fare worse in war when fighting against alliances that use lower rates and have less ability to defend all of its members.

You die another day? Sorry couldn't resist.

Aren't we all winners though?

Except it's neither amusing, nor satire, nor another.

Alliance of the Year: NPO Most Powerful Alliance: NPO Best Military: NPO Best Rookie Alliance: Most Powerful Bloc: Best Flag: Most Active Alliance: Most Honorable Alliance: NATO Best Diplomatic Team: NPO Best Economic System: NPO Best Recruiting Staff: Best Propagandist: hartfw Scariest Alliance: TOP Best Alliance Growth: IRON Best War Flag: NATO Best Forums: NPO Alliance Most Likely to Succeed in 2015: NPO Most Immoral Alliance: TOP Most Controversial Alliance: SNX Player of the Year: Most Powerful Player: Letum Best Alliance Leader: Letum Most Controversial Player: Tywin Best Player Sig: Best Player Avatar: Best Poster: Nicest Player: Funniest Player: Rey Most Active Player: Player Most Likely to Achieve Greatness in 2015: Best New Addition to the Community: Most Hated Poster: Tywin Best Declaration of War (Alliance Topic): Best Declaration of War (in-game war screen): Best Wall of Text: Best OWF Topic: Biggest Controversy: NPO Terms of Surrender Funniest Event: Most Entertaining IRC Channel Best Treaty Announcement Worst Diplomatic Move: SNX Merger Best Player Quote: Best IRC Log: Largest E-Peen: Best Villain: Most Missed Player (Player that has gone inactive/quit): Best WaterCooler Thread: Worst Alliance: SNX Worst Sphere: Worst Poster: Tywin Most Annoying Poster: Tywin Biggest Mouth: Tywin Biggest !@#$: Tywin Quietest Power Player: Letum

This is complete BS. How come ODN get all the good ones? :P

While I'm not one to plug, I feel like it might be worth it to bring something up that I wrote that is relevant to this discussion. A little while back, I wrote a piece on my blog about the ethics of CBs, specifically whether it's ethically wrong to have no CB at all. I had a lot of fun writing it, but really the discussion that was had after was particularly enjoyable for me, and if you're at all interested in this topic, I would very much encourage you to read the article and ensuing discussion (or even just peruse it).

So senators command the army in SNX?

I think well-run bureaucracies can be very beneficial. They have to be well-run and comprised of active, competent members, but if they are they make a potent force. However, SNX has the most unnecessarily complex gov structure I've ever seen. For example, why is there a Senate and a Triumvirate. Why can't the Triumvirate make the laws? That's how triumvirates nearly always work. Sure one can argue that the Senate checks the power of the Triumvirate, but SNX already has a court to ensure they follow the law. It also doesn't make much sense for the Triumvirate not to have legislative authority because while they're the "executives" of the alliance, they're required to appoint ministers to carry out that executive function, so they basically don't do anything but "oversee" (whatever that may mean) the appointed ministers. That seems fairly pointless to me. I hope they at least streamline it a bit at some point.

Excellent, it's all going according to plan ... or something, probably, maybe. If I don't get to fight alongside at least one R&Rer or NATOan, there will be hell to pay ... or something, probably, maybe. Guys, I'm starting to think I may be bad at this.

That'd be cool, but there's no way it could be accurately calculated. The closest you could get would be to figure the relative power (as calculated ITT) of the treaty partners of each alliance and find some kind of metric that summarizes that. But really, true political is all tied to belief, as someone on some premium cable channel once said: "Power resides where men believe it resides."

I think the idea is tech is hard NS and infra, land, and military forces are soft NS, since tech is so much harder to destroy than the other three and is therefore much more resilient. Much more hard NS will remain after a war than soft NS.

I guess you didn't get the reference. :D

We hold ourselves in contempt, why should you be any different!?

Well, I don't think DL itself will do anything to stop them even if they could. Pointless to burn bridges and all that. However, other alliances can take the treaty and use it to their advantage if they want to, which is why treaties written like DL are a bad idea.

The short answer is it isn't enforceable. The long answer might be more complicated. Another alliance could decide that if DL declares war against them, then UCR has as well, and they could attack UCR. I mean by the terms of the treaty, this is true: [Article IV, Section 1] [Article III, Section 1]

You beat me to it, but yeah technically they're always a member of Die Linke since any action to withdraw is illegal under the terms of the treaty. Granted, it's not like they can be forced to abide by the treaty and actually act as if they are a member, but since they can't legally withdraw, in the future another alliance could use this against them. Perhaps by refusing to recognize them as separate from Die Linke, that could be make for some interesting situations I'd bet. They could've amended it to take that eternity clause out, but from the announcement it's clear they never did that (since they only amended it once and it wasn't to do that).

It was an O-Level treaty when it was active, and the ODN-TTK treaty is as well.

That'd be the first time that's ever happened on the OWF. :P