Vladimir

Don't tempt me. I could go on for a long, long time about the folly of 'common sense' politics.

How often it is that things are reduced to a matter of 'common sense'. It is usually used as a synonym for 'obvious', but its use goes much deeper than that, attempting to stigmatise the one supposedly lacking this sense and brush aside anything more nuanced as intellectual claptrap that flies in the face of what the common man knows to be true. But how does he know it? Almost by definition common sense is unanalysed, unconsidered assumption, learned by assertion from past generations and peers. It is that which is so obvious to the holder that to question it is to step outside the realms of reality and make yourself worthy of little more than ridicule: it is the essence of something being true because it is perceived as being true. Already we can begin to see the problems inherent to it: it puts the cart before the horse, taking the conclusion before the facts. Of course, there are times when it can be used as an appropriate shorthand -- if you walk off a ledge you will fall; if you touch boiling water you will burn; if you don't drink you will thirst. These are things that are all easily and constantly verified through thousands of experiments; they are things experienced by us all in common and with no secondary interpretation open to them. In this way they can legitimately be said to be common sense since they are the absolute lowest level of common experience from which everything else is based. However, we can also recognise that this is not true because it is common sense but because it is scientific -- repeatable experiments confirm the predictions of the hypothesis. Nevertheless it is the scientific method inherent to these most base levels of understanding that give the invocation of common sense such power, and it is this power that scrupulous politicians, in the absence of scientific argument, come to rely on. The problem with common sense is that it is such a big fish in such a small pond that it has to constantly try and break out into larger and more important areas. Not content with its dominance of daily axioms it demands a place in political and historical circles, and it is here that it begins to flounder. While an "unanalysed, unconsidered assumption" may hold in cases of self-evident truths, it does less well in the complex field of empirical-theoretical analysis. Indeed, this is true to such an extent that in my experience the common sense of politics and history is almost universally demonstrated to be wrong by actual scientific inquiry. This is because it is far from the repeatable experiments of of daily common experience that it is instead forced to rely on long chains of assumptions and anecdotes taken from those around it. Indeed, it is flawed to such an extent that the more complex an area becomes the more versions of common sense it produces, inevitably ending in self-contradiction. In this way common sense goes from being scientific to being the worst kind of circular logic. While the facts remain basic, common sense is capable of witnessing the truth of the situation; but when the facts become more complex and open to debate common sense is forced to make an assumption about the truth, and so it becomes: this is common sense because it is true, this is true because it is common sense -- a closed loop that denies contrary opinion and refuses evidence. It is in this way that any appeal to common sense in political or historical matters immediately fails to meet the standard. Beyond the most basic of self-evidents the reasoning of 'because it is' can no longer be considered legitimate or justified. Instead we must replace the belief in common sense with a belief in the scientific motto "Question Everything." Only when politicians and historians learn to live by this new motto will they be able to look the facts in the face and come to an objective, scientific conclusion.

Glad you enjoyed it. Including myself, I think that makes a 100% approval rating of all who have read it.

A Crisis of Memory After nearly 30 months it seems that this one war remains the most intriguing of them all. For the old League mob and their younger patriots it is the glimmer of hope that the Order isn't invincible, while for the Orders it is the moment when they faced down the entire world and came out triumphant. The accepted result of this war seems to move in circles. Immediately after the Great Patriotic War, with the Orders on radio silence, it became common sense among the opposing side that the Orders had lost -- though this belief was constantly shaken as the Orders advanced far ahead of the former coaluetion alliances in economic, military and diplomatic matters. After the First War of Retribution, with the Order back on the forums and the return to active duty of some of its formerly absent political leaders, common sense shot back to the opposite side, and it was accepted by everyone (or at least, few challenges were made to the point) that the war had been either a stalemate or a victory for the Order. More recently it appears that we have finally reached the synthesis, as political affiliation rather than historical fact dictates who won the war. Given this we could take a fascinating look at the evolution of accepted history and the role that the hegemonic military/culture of the day plays in it. But perhaps another time; today it is more important to set straight the events of the war and bring a little more historical accuracy to the debate. Rather than argue from a perspective, linking in the logical conclusions and demonstrating my own point or view, I will instead give a brief overview of exactly what occurred and then place forward my opinion, thus allowing the reader to develop their own unimpeded. The War It is important first of all to give some context leading up to the war. At that time on Planet Bob the hegemony was the Orders, with their ally Legion playing a passive role (assumed ready to back up the Orders if they were attacked). Outside of this small group the Orders were despised for a catalogue of historical (wars), political ('arrogance'), and emotional (being the one at the top, amongst other things) reasons. Both a cause and a consequence of this is that the Orders were largely isolationist. The many alliances of the world that hated the Orders made numerous attempts to sabotage them, often resulting in war (ODN, NAAC, ICSN, ICP, to name a few). But while these wars made individual alliances impotent for a period of time, it was clear to the Pacifican hierarchy that their relative strength was declining -- while growing much faster than any individual alliance, and faster than all alliances combined in percentage growth, the absolute strength of their would-be enemies was advancing due to sheer numbers to a stage where the Orders would not be able to defend themselves against a concentrated attack. It was disturbing therefore when they also recognised a growing confidence in these alliances to unite with each other for various reasons (although the incompetence of the alliances in question and the skill of the Orders' diplomats slowed it considerably). We can therefore see the context in which the war kicked off, with the potential enemies of the Order becoming strong enough to challenge the hegemony if only they had the confidence to unite, and with that confidence slowly growing as the political dots began to connect. History shows that the Orders didn't act on the alarm bells, primarily due to their confidence in Legion (who hadn't openly succumbed to anti-Pacifican propaganda like GATO) to defend them from an unprovoked attack -- and indeed, if they had, then the oncoming war would have been a relatively easy victory for this group. Had time gone on as it was, it is difficult to believe that the Orders would have allowed themselves to be surpassed so easily, but it was at this point that history threw a curve ball. On a slow night Yaridovich infamously posted his slasher-pornographic stories about various members of the Planet Bob community, among them a particularly ugly one about a female member of the IGC. Yaridovich was promptly banned and the world should have moved on, but it was the reaction among LUE that got to the Orders and many others (notably GATO and ODN as we shall see later). With the thread in question removed from the forum, it was rehosted on the LUE server and their IRC chatroom was abuzz with excitment among both regular and government members as they passed it around. Not one of them stood up to condemn the event until after their fate became clear, and those who joined the channel to complain were promptly banned. To members of the community this was something new, and they reacted with disgust. A room of ODN, GATO, NPO and NpO officials quickly sprung up where LUE was condemned on all sides and an agreement was unanimously reached to punish them militarily. One particularly demonstrative quote from Chris Kaos (soon to be a chief negotiator for the coaluetion and condemning the 'imperialism' of the Orders' attack) went: "what you do is you knock them down and keep them down and then refuse to acknowledge their existance whilst holding them down." Things were set in motion, and without dissent the conclusion was reached: LUE would be attacked for their conduct by a combined force including many alliances from across Planet Bob. So solid was this conclusion that the then NPO Regent, Vladimir, left the events without concern or a second thought. It wasn't until he returned a few hours later that he would find the political situation in turmoil and his nation in nuclear anarchy. So what happened between these two times? The answer lies in two events. The first occurred when Tygaland, attempting to discuss matters with LUE, was repeatedly kicked and banned from their IRC channel while they continued the festivities brought on by Yaridovich's thread. The culmination of events throughout the night led eventually to Tygaland unilaterally launching a nuclear strike against LUE without warning the other allies. With LUE launching a response against both the NpO and the NPO (from my position at the time I know that the NPO would have joined the war regardless, but as a point of fact it is important to remember that LUE attacked first), the war had begun. The second event lay in the Covenant of the Lost, which revealed itself at this time. The President of GATO, it turned out, was a spy, working for a group that had members in the Legion, ODN and NPO governments. After discussion with her colleague in Legion, President Yoda, instead of siding with the Orders as promised, instead launched an all out attack against the NPO. The Orders were able to deal with both of these alliances with ease, with strategic discussions within the Orders at he time not even bothering to discuss post-war damage, as it was believed it would be so minimal. However, with the anti-Order sentiment rife throughout many alliances on Planet Bob, GATO's attack proved to be the spur of confidence that was required. One after another, dozens of alliances declared against the Orders and the forums went ablaze with anticipation that the time had finally come for the Orders to fall (though this anticipation took on an unsavoury form and the forums had to be taken offline for the first time in their history, after numerous warnings, suspensions and bannings failed to calm the members of the newly forming coaluetion). But still the Orders managed to hold strong without losing much ground. What concerned them, however, were reports that two of the larger alliances, the ODN and NAAC, were considering joining the war against them. To head off this threat high ranking Pacifican officials approached their allies, Legion, to discuss their position, which was assumed to be strong after the not-insignificant damage recently taken on Legion's behalf defending them from WSA. Sure enough, and true to their word, Legion promised to join the war. But as time passed by and they remained quiet they were approached again, and this time decided that it would be better to use the threat of their force to prevent NAAC and the ODN from joining -- stating that if either did, then so would Legion. This threat proved toothless, and both alliances joined that night to no response. Pacifican officials continued to approach Legion and continued to receive assurances that they would join the war 'tomorrow'. Despite the entrance of the ODN and NAAC, along with many more smaller alliances, the Orders managed to maintain their position, and, while the entrance of the ODN was placing more pressure at the top, Pacifican strategists continued to predict a relatively painless victory to great cost for the attacking alliances. In this period there was a lot of negotiation, but none that went to achieving a resolution. What came out of them were a number of 24 hour ceasefires, each unilaterally broken by the newly formed coaluetion just before update in an attempt to gain the advantage. But ultimately, if they were to win this war, they needed more fire-power. It was at this point that the Covenant came back into the picture. Frustrated by Legion's continued promises to enter the war and subsequent failures to do so, a couple of Council members vented their feelings in a private room, with one member of the War Council even shouting for war against them after this one had ended. Of course, this member was shouted down and the Emperor made it clear, even in this private discussion, that no retribution would be sought against Legion. But the damage was done. One member of the Alliance Council in that room was a member of the Covenant and forwarded the conversation to his co-conspirators, who, sensing the opportunity, edited them and provided them to Legion's ruling group. With the pushing of the Minister of Intelligence (who was a member of the Covenant) and the underlying anti-Pacifican that had hitherto remained hidden, Legion resolved to attack the Orders that night. Through a series of bureaucratic blunders by the Legion elite, the Pacifican hierarchy quickly found out about the war and approached Legion about it, only to be met with denial after denial and a general refusal to discuss the matter. In an effort to prevent the escalation, the Order even sought out and provided evidence that both GATO and LUE were actively spying on Legion. Sure enough the members were kicked out, but it was only the Orders who were attacked. There is no denying that this was a blow to the Orders. Legion's presence in the top ranks, and with their nations thus far untouched by the war, provided the strategic firepower necessary for the coaluetion to make a go of it. Unsurprisingly, the coaluetion cut off all negotiations at this point, refusing any suggestion of discussion with the Orders. Their earlier impotent demands of the Orders disbanding to them now seemed a foregone conclusion, and discussion was redundant. This was undoubtedly an optimistic view of the situation. While the coalition had a massive number advantage and now had the numbers at the top to try and ram them home, they still lacked the organisation and experience of the Orders, and while many on the political side of the Order could barely see for the thick pessimism hanging over them (to the extent that the Regent was at one point attacked by a member of the Council as unrealistic simply for attempting to move forward on organising the war effort) , the military side maintained that the war was winnable even if all alliances continued fighting [a massive nuclear assault was lined up against Legion for the day after they left the war and their exit proved an ambivalent experience for a number of military commanders]. This carried on for a couple of days, with the battle looking relatively even to the impartial bystander, but the Orders were hard at work negotiating privately with individual alliances so as to gain the clear advantage. It wasn't long before they had convinced both Legion and the ODN (the two alliances causing them the most military trouble due to their top-heavy numbers) to leave the war. This was a massive psychological as well as military blow for the coaluetion, and this is reflected even today in the attitude of many towards the two alliances. But at the time it was fear rather than anger that occupied their minds. With these two alliances leaving independently and without notice, many began to consider that others would do likewise, and no one wanted to be the last one at war (the last one who may not receive a peace -- a situation ruthlessly exploited by Pacifican propaganda). So it was that following the departure of the ODN and Legion there began a trickle and then a flood of smaller alliances leaving the war, many of them offering surrenders as a way of doing so; something that the Orders refused in favour of straight white peace in order to encourage the flood. This grew to such an extent that at one point almost the entire first page of the Open World Forum was made up of alliances trying to escape the war and apologising to the Orders. With this new reality revealed the Orders' negotiators were now able to open each negotiation with the number of coaluetion alliances that had tried to surrender that day, thus highlighting the rapidly weakening bargaining position of those remaining; and more than once a negotiator was heard replying to a demand with 'do you think this is yesterday?'. Where the coaluetion had first demanded unconditional disbandment of both Orders, and then even refused to enter talks, before going back to the original demand after Legion and the ODN left, the demands were now rapidly weakening as the war went on. From the disbandment of both it became simply the disbandment of the NpO, and from there it went for the NpO to leave blue, and from there it became a cash demand, and from there the cash became less and less, until eventually the demand became an apology from the Orders -- also refused -- and then finally a request for a personal apology from Ivan Moldavi, Emperor of the NPO. The Orders' negotiators had been quite unforgiving throughout, hitting the coalution negotiators hard with various tactics and refusing to concede anything significant, even when the war looked at its worst. At this point they knew that the war was, in the long run, won for them. CDS, another of the large alliances, had agreed to leave the war the next day, and many more were likely to follow as they had been throughout the previous few days. But the situation was not that easy. Despite their conduct in the war, the Order had lost a lot of strength, while the losses on the coaluetion side were spread over a wider range of alliances and nations. It was recognised that losing more strength would make rebuilding exponentially more difficult, and so an outright tactical victory through forcing the collapse of the coaluetion would simultaneously mean a potential strategic defeat in the long term. Given this trade off the Orders' decided that the latter was the better option. So it came that in the face of victory the Orders lay down their arms and the war drew to a close. [1] The above is as impartial a telling of the story of the Great Patriotic War as is possible. The analysis to follow too will aim to be as impartial as possible, but with the understanding that anything that doesn't state 'the coaluetion won' in the most emphatic of terms will be shouted down as biased in certain quarters, we have kept it separate so as to leave the story of the war as uncontroversial as possible. It is my hope that this will be of use to future historians as well as this specific debate. [2] More specifics can be found in the youtube video I created at the time: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=kiQVsj0QZrk. Though the video is obviously from a propaganda perspective, the quotes it provides are accurate and of great use to the historian. Who won? What is it to win? To achieve your original goals? There have been claims that, taking this parameter, it is clear that the coaluetion won. Their goal was to prevent LUE from destruction and this was achieved. But was it? The context of events sheds light on another view, where not only were the main movers in the war unconcerned with LUE's survival, but a number of them actively agreed to attack them beforehand! Of the three main players in the war, this was the story of GATO and the ODN, with the third, Legion, supposedly entering due to a threat on themselves. No, this story doesn't hold together. It seems clear to me that the majority of alliances entering the war did so out of a long historical hatred of the Orders and a desire to see the world without them. Indeed, many were unapologetic about this even in the heat of war, most notably the Emperor of another major player, Prodigal Chieftain of the GGA. Retrospectively we can see likewise for GATO (led by a spy network determined to destroy the Orders) and Legion (who entered on the flimsiest of evidence to secure their position at the top). Moreover, most of the other alliances who entered did so by a network of 'chained' MDPs -- that is to say, Alliance A attacked Alliance X, Alliance X is therefore de facto attacking Alliance A, thus to defend alliance A is a defensive act -- and most of the smaller alliances did so out of a rather vocal anti-Pacifican spirit rather than anything else. Indeed, that was the propaganda of the day, not to defend LUE (since no one actually wanted to), but to crush the Orders! If we therefore take the goal of the coaluetion to be 'crush the Orders', it was clearly a rather colossal failure. Of course, the argument usually evolves from this point, since it is unsustainable in the face of critical thought. Instead the proponents of coaluetion victory argue that they won due to the personal apology offered by Ivan Moldavi (later unilaterally retracted on the basis that it wasn't from the Order as a whole). This is a complete abandonment of the definition of victory usually used by the same people, but we can skip over that oversight for the purposes here, since the point is incorrect anyway. With the war going against them the coaluetion made a last ditch effort to save face by asking for an apology. This is little more than a token gesture by a side on their way to winning a war in order to end it slightly sooner for long-term strategic reasons. Can a losing army claim that as a victory, despite the gesture being a mockery of everything it fought for? To answer in the affirmative surely comes with the direst stench of desperation. What about the Orders' original goals? Given the discussion with GATO and the ODN mentioned in the previous section, it was explicitly to teach LUE a lesson, if not destroy them completely, and this has never been denied. Were they punished? The fact that it is difficult to say would suggest not as much as the Orders would have liked. While their strength plummeted and a wave of defeatism washed over them in the early days, arguably 'teaching them a lesson' about what they did, they nevertheless emerged as a centre-point in the coaluetion and built up a significant influence as a result -- something that was perhaps more important to them. If the war had gone on there is little doubt in my mind that LUE would have been left to fight alone and would have been destroyed, but this isn't what occurred, as the Order took the strategic option and instead destroyed them some 6 months later. With neither side achieving their original goals we could easily stop here and call it a stalemate as many have done in the past, most eloquently by Comrade Z'ha'dum. But I disagree. What is a stalemate? It would seem to me that it is a situation where neither side can advance at any speed, and thus the war ends due to no one being able to move forward. This was clearly not the situation in the Great Patriotic War, where one side was being struck by an epidemic of surrenders while the other took control. If the side that is actually winning the war then agrees to pull out at the desperate requests of the losing side, what do we call that? Humanitarianism? Perhaps a strategic withdrawal would be more apt. But a strategic withdrawal in these material conditions does not offer the same negative connotations as we have come to take from it. In a strategic withdrawal here there is no ground conceded, nothing lost. If the objectives have been taken as far as they can be then a strategic withdrawal is the only sensible option and cannot be considered a negative action. Of course, this must be qualified somewhat. In the case of this strategic withdrawal the withdrawing side was the only side capable of victory -- and thus the only side capable of ending the war. To use an example, if you are in a fight with and have knocked your opponent to the ground and he is unable to move, then leaving that fight to get to work on time does not mean that you lost, or indeed, even that you drew -- I will not begrudge you claiming later on that you won, despite withdrawing for other reasons, even if your objective was incomplete. Taking these points to their logical conclusion therefore leaves us with a simple analogy of the coaluetion as the Black Knight and the Orders as King Arthur: "Oh, oh, I see, running away then. You yellow [censoreds]! Come back here and take what's coming to you. I'll bite your legs off!"

History is a strange thing. Through time it takes on new meanings to new people as facts get clouded or lost and the atmospheric context dissipates with the passing on of eye-witnesses. The more time that passes, the more distant and abstract the history becomes. The result? In most cases the moment is passed and lost forever; but the big moments remain in the memories of those that they comes into contact with. Unfortunately, as I outlined, it never survives intact, and through the process of degradation often becomes a clumsy weapon for use by those who know little of it (and understand much less). Given this we dread to imagine what becomes of prehistory -- that which occurred even before the existence of our world. The example par excellence of this has been the August Revolution and the early NPO under Comrade Franco. Of course we all know the basic story of the oppressed class rising up to defeat an empire, taking its destiny in its own hands against all the odds and facing down the armies of the whole imperialist world in pursuit of the ideals of 'Peace Strength and Prosperity'. It's a powerful and inspiring story no question, and it's one that still echoes in every move that the Order makes. But for many it's a vague story, little understood -- a mere series of stories and events without depth -- and for those looking for a way to attack Pacifica it has thus become an easy target to co-opt for subversive purposes. Suddenly the Dictatorship of the Feederites has disappeared and talk of electoral democracy and social niceties have taken their place, or the great purges have evaporated into thin air as talk of an individualised sovereignty attempts to take over, or (more recently) an ultimately powerless institution inside the Order suddenly becomes the king-maker, and destroyer of the Revolution. These are just a few examples, but they serve well to demonstrate the way that even the basics of such a monumental historical moment can be so drastically twisted and misunderstood in ways that at the time would have seemed impossible. It falls to me then, one of the last remaining Senators of Franco's Pacific, to expand the historic record and try to bring back some of what has been lost to time. In the past we have generally discussed The Pacific in chronological order, detailing the Revolution, the subsequent invasions, the advances, Comrade Franco's departure, and the NPO's reformation into the PRP [People's Republic of the Pacific] under the new Emperor. Doing this may give a useful overall picture of events, but it is also much to blame for allowing subsequent misrepresentations. Without going into the specifics of a principle, policy or moment it is impossible to provide and accurate picture, and thus the few details given are easily pulled out of their real context and placed into the context of a fledging ideology trying to base itself on Pacifica's historical experience. Due to time constraints it is impossible for all that is necessary to be said in this post, and so, having outlined the problems, it serves only as an introduction to an upcoming series that will aim to rectify them. In the brief interlude perhaps others interested in the subject (if there are any who read this blog) will put forward things that they would look to see discussed.

Yep, she went out in style. An inspiration to us all.

Au contraire, mon amis. You need to read up on your despotic repartie.

Let them eat cake.

I don't see the contradiction between the two positions taken in the first paragraph. That alliances can share moral positions does not mean that they share a morality -- no exception is required. I outlined this in the original post. I also think you misinterpreted my point about the international sphere being amoral. Indeed, the dominant moral positions at any given time may be influenced more by larger alliances (they take up more of the stage and have bigger microphones, after all), but the international sphere remains an amoral vacuum because it does not have a morality of its own owing to its lack of grounding in material reality. Acting like a mirror, what you see is simply a reflection of the moralities that alliances put into it.

I'm confused by this article. You begin by defining moral relativism and absolutism, and the proceed to completely abandon those definitions in the discussion that follows. As you correctly point out at the start, moral absolutism is a belief that there is an objective right and wrong, and therefore that every alliance and individual should be judged by this one single morality. Moral absolutism is not the belief that a certain moral must always be adhered to by the individual who holds the moral -- a moral relativist is equally likely to hold this belief, the only difference is that the relativist doesn't believe that everyone else must always adhere to it as well. In this way the moral absolutist wouldn't say "we honour our treaties no matter what," they would say "everyone honours their treaties no matter what," and then proceed to consider any who doesn't to be immoral. If the former statement is true and the latter not then it would be a moral relativist position.

I would never be so simplistic as to say that the Continuum is successful solely as a result of this, or that previous blocs failed solely because they failed to consider it. What I outlined is merely one point of many -- specifically outlined because it directly relates to the subject at hand. The link I posted in response to your article provides another reason (which I would consider the salient reason for the long-term existence of a bloc, though more would need to be done to flesh out why this bloc is the Continuum), and on top of that there are many more -- historical, structural, institutional and personal.

In order for blocs to succeed there obviously has to be some overlap of basic policy in areas such as foreign affairs. Indeed, it is usually this that brings the various alliances together in the first place -- the League and Initiative weren't separated by random alliance allocation. However, I doubt you will find anyone even inside the Continuum that will claim it to be morally homogeneous; a few Continuum members even had a friendly little debate about morality just a few days ago in the OWF. So why does it succeed? Where the Continuum has its strength is in its ability to respect the different moralities and perspectives of its member-alliances. This has freed it up to concentrate on the common interest of all involved: mutual friendship and security. Of course, as was hinted at in the beginning of this reply, it is here that the overlaps make themselves felt. To take a very basic example, no member-alliance supports the initiation of 'lulz' wars, as one might have found in an Unjust Pact alliance. If one did and followed through on this policy it may begin to create some tension if it expected the other member-alliances to back it up. Having key commonalities in these shared areas while respecting the differences elsewhere, is where the Continuum has derived its longevity from.

Indeed, the conclusions of Slavery can be seen throughout this work in regards to structure, anarchy and heterogeneity in the international sphere.Of course I do not mean to suggest that every morality is different on every single point -- I expect that this would be impossible since on some matters the number of alliances outnumbers the number of possible perspectives -- and indeed in some circumstances we can see moralities temporarily cooperating against another. This is most notable in pre-war situations. The Unjust Pact certainly had overlapping moralities on a number of points, for example, as did the League. But even so, these moralities are still different (as a result of arising from different material conditions), and where they unite on certain specific points, they invariably do so in order to combat an opposing morality (whether offensively or defensively). Throughout, the anarchic battle continues and order remains elusive.

The exponential growth of small alliances has already had a massive impact on global politics. Where you are, in my opinion, missing the point, is in viewing only direct and conscious actions as worthy of consideration. In fact it is their mere existence that has changed the world in ways far more significant than a few "new emerging powers" ever could. The proliferation of small alliances has altered the number, movement and strength of forces in the international arena, and as an inevitable result the way in which the major alliances operate has had to adjust. This has been noticed by just about everyone, they have just failed to properly associate the cause with the effect. http://cybernations.wikia.com/wiki/The_Outwards_Spiral

"When you look for a long time into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche There was recently a short debate on the place of morality in the international sphere where I argued that morality was unique to each individual alliance, a result of their particular socio-political system and place in the world. In other words, ones morality is derived from their perspective, with the salient cause being their choice of alliance. Of course, you could nitpick at various details of this, but for the purpose of this discussion suffice to say that the broad outline provided is historically and empirically self-evident. Returning to the path of the aforementioned debate, where does this leave the international sphere? Following from the above it must be an inherently amoral place. It has no structure or power of its own (as an alliance does, making it fundamentally different in nature), and as such is a vacuum that merely provides a stage for the moralities of elsewhere to showcase themselves. But we must go further than this in realising that the various moralities are not cooperative in nature; they do not happily coexist, supporting and furthering each other. No, they are the most competitive of things, condemning, raging and battling against one another for hegemony in the centre ground. Of course, it is impossible for one morality to gain this hegemony in any meaningful sense precisely due to the lack of structure, and so the battle perpetually rages on. Why can they not coexist happily? It is again self-evident, but I'm sure many would demand a response. Moralities are not abstract feel-good things, they have very real and practical political consequences. Take the Pacifican view of war against an alliance where only the leadership can be said to have clearly 'sinned', for example, against the view of many other alliances -- for the former it is morally legitimate while for the latter it may seem the pinnacle of barbarity and imperialism. The result is a great tension that may materialise in any number of ways, but the one thing that is certain is great moral conflict. Having discussed the nature of the international sphere -- amoral, competitive, anarchic -- we can begin to realise why this short article is titled 'The Great Abyss'. The international sphere is a vacuum that exists only by virtue of what the various alliances put into it; remove such inputs and the international sphere itself is nothing. What then of those who reside in this international sphere. They may be allianceless, or simply more interested in the international sphere than their formal place of residence, but the important point is that the international sphere becomes their environment, and thus their perspective: they become children of the international. To some idealists this may sound like an exciting concept. Apparently (though in reality not) free of military constraints and social superstructures, these children are open to everything! But this is exactly the problem. As they wander the battlefield of the Abyss they begin to take on its eclectic qualities, following nothing through to its logical conclusion, and instead taking on a bit of this and a bit of that. One might think that they do so with the best of methods, but they cannot judge the war by viewing the battle. With no grounding in the material realities of an alliance they cannot understand the perspectives and motivations that one takes on outside of the international sphere. By looking into the Abyss they become the personification of it: often excited, occasionally adventurous and sometimes articulate, but in the final analysis always empty.

The dialectical reasoning used in your opening post is fascinating. To take the 'personal friendly' as your thesis and then posit the 'anonymous violence' anti-thesis provides insights that I had hitherto overlooked. However, I am dying to see the completion of your work. Can we expect the follow-through to the synthesis in the next post?

It is important to note that back in those days no alliance seriously (or even passingly) combated ghosts, so none of those numbers reflect actual member count. I'm sure we all remember when GATO was put on the top of the newly introduced alliance list and saw their member count just about double overnight (something that they had no hesitation in accepting and bragging about). For example, the last time I checked the statistics the Praetorian Guard, which deals with nations ghosting the NPO, it had processed over 5000 nations in the past year alone. I don't think the membership numbers of the largest alliances have changed a great deal; just the numbers claiming membership.

I'd suggest sticking with your original plan of suing us for not letting you in.

I think it was Winston Churchill who said, "If you agree with Vladimir when you're young, you have no heart. If you disagree with Vladimir when you're older, you have no brain."

How embarrassing for him.

While your inability to comprehend simple discussion without turning it into an evil Pacifican conspiracy is amusing, I'm afraid I was simply talking about the rate of growth. If both alliances continue to grow at their current average speed then the Order will overtake the GPA in around 5 weeks.

Only for another 5 weeks if current trends continue.

SetiCruncher is correct. At present intercepted nuclear weapons still destroy tanks. This is a report from a comrade a few days ago, which I'm sure he won't mind me sharing.