The politics of contempt

[salsabeast1]

8k average NS, with your top 40 nations in peace. One of the great victories of the gloriest GOONS alliance.

[WorldConqueror]

If you think contempt in politics is new, you're just displaying your naivety, or short memory. The term WAE was applied to GATO during the Initiative/League era, as was the characterization of Legion as a paper tiger, and LoSS being labeled Trash Can. I'm sure there was plenty of contempt flying around pre-GWI with the NPO-ODN and NPO/NpO-NAAC rivalries. Contempt is simply another facet of the demonization process used to isolate enemies. The SF/XX grouping is just the latest to be denigrated on the basis of perceived ability. By contrast, your side attempted to get the contempt train rolling against us on the basis of attitude, with the furore over perceived OOC attacks and 'unjustified' wars. This very OP is laden with references to the view you've been trying to build, with characterizations like genocidal maniacs. What I find funny is that this last war was supported by many alliances due to the idea of 'Fungicide 2013', an attempt to break DH on the basis of contempt for past actions.

[Letum]

Maybe you can run a large recruiting alliance and pull off the same activity as a small core of high tier nations. It's not an indication of incompetence, it's accepting the natural tradeoff that happens when you run a different style alliance.

Today's Slot Usage Efficiency:

NPO: 65.86%
Umbrella: 59.39%
IRON: 56.19%
MK: 51.36%

The two largest alliances seem to manage it (even though Umbrella's numbers are lower than usual today). It's a matter of how much effort people are prepared to put into it; if you can do it with 100 people you can do it with 200 and you can do it with 300. Calling it a "natural tradeoff" is more of an excuse to not try than a cause. Recruitment has a role but frankly its a small one (at least, beyond micros).

What *can* make a difference is the NS distribution of an alliance; some alliances get hammered to the point where their most active members are in the lower/mid tiers, and their upper tiers are composed of people who got to keep their NS because they were inactive and/or sat in peacemode in previous wars.

But beyond that, it's a simple fact that some alliances are technically focused and make the extra effort to keep their members active and engaged, and others just like to be social clubs and hang out. There's nothing wrong with either way of approaching the world, but fact is it creates a difference in technical ability, and that difference is mostly down to sweat and toil. Edited June 1, 2013 by Letum

[Alex987]

Fair enough, though slot usage success doesn't necessarily connect to war success, especially since it's easier for sellers to fill slots than buyers. Hence why DT has been heralded multiple times to have fought very well in the past war, and yet their slot usage isn't ridiculously high. Ability in war =/= high slot usage. Even though the common thread is activity (ability in war <-- activity --> slot usage), it gets diluted and changed by multiple factors along the way for significant differences.

 

My original point was that the tradeoff between quantity and quality is inherent. You cannot have both more quantity and more quality without exceptional outside work. Their definition of "competence" very clearly favors their style of alliance in that the primary factor is activity per member, rather than aggregate impact. Recruiting alliances naturally accept the tradeoff of less activity per member (since they're going out and getting their members rather than having their members come to them) for increased overall impact.

 

Of course, as you said that increased impact also couldn't be used since there was an excess on one side and a shortage on the other, which also reduces the raw numbers advantage that propagandists keep emphasizing. That is a larger factor than the idea I was arguing, I just brought my point up because it was a bit of a pet peeve to keep seeing the same thing repeated :P. It obviously wasn't the best war, but as usual there's a lot of propaganda chucked at the wall to see what sticks to make everything seem more polarized.

[Neo Uruk]

8k average NS, with your top 40 nations in peace. One of the great victories of the gloriest GOONS alliance.

You could say we were defeated if we had been actively getting rolled by the main front or something. We were fighting NPL. But please, you can all point at GOONS stats while you say Umbrella got rolled too, despite them being in position for sanction until RnR's recruiting schemes paid off.

[Hereno]

Today's Slot Usage Efficiency:

NPO: 65.86%
Umbrella: 59.39%
IRON: 56.19%
MK: 51.36%

The two largest alliances seem to manage it (even though Umbrella's numbers are lower than usual today). It's a matter of how much effort people are prepared to put into it; if you can do it with 100 people you can do it with 200 and you can do it with 300. Calling it a "natural tradeoff" is more of an excuse to not try than a cause. Recruitment has a role but frankly its a small one (at least, beyond micros).

What *can* make a difference is the NS distribution of an alliance; some alliances get hammered to the point where their most active members are in the lower/mid tiers, and their upper tiers are composed of people who got to keep their NS because they were inactive and/or sat in peacemode in previous wars.

But beyond that, it's a simple fact that some alliances are technically focused and make the extra effort to keep their members active and engaged, and others just like to be social clubs and hang out. There's nothing wrong with either way of approaching the world, but fact is it creates a difference in technical ability, and that difference is mostly down to sweat and toil.

 

Taking this opportunity to shamelessly plug that NSO's slot usage is higher than all of those except NPO.

 

---

 

Also, the "competence" v "equilibrium" stuff ITT is ridiculous. It is always weird seeing people take seriously the bullshit party lines that we came up with to characterize coalitions with dozens of alliances in them.

[Letum]

Certainly slot usage doesn't really indicate much about war ability. However, as you noted, it *does* indicate an alliance's activity, showing that it does not necessarily get diluted with greater size. The other factors that go into war ability, such as technical buildup (tech/warchest/wonders), knowledge of war mechanics and commitment to getting pounded aren't particularly affected by size either. It is not that hard to educate and build up a new nation to the point where they can be competent in their range. Point is that putting in the effort to get 200 nations active, committed and built up for war isn't any harder than getting 100 people to do it. Sure, there's twice as many nations to look after but you also have twice as many people to look after them with.

[salsabeast1]

You could say we were defeated if we had been actively getting rolled by the main front or something. We were fighting NPL. But please, you can all point at GOONS stats while you say Umbrella got rolled too, despite them being in position for sanction until RnR's recruiting schemes paid off.

Good job spewing bullshit, like you usually do, as I never said any where Umbrella got rolled. I did say in the opening week Umbrella got hit hard, but clearly they weren't rolled, or even defeated.

 

GOONS on the other hand, well, 8k average NS speaks for itself. I don't get where NPL comes in there, as a whole lot more then NPL fought GOONS.

[Alex987]

Certainly slot usage doesn't really indicate much about war ability. However, as you noted, it *does* indicate an alliance's activity, showing that it does not necessarily get diluted with greater size. The other factors that go into war ability, such as technical buildup (tech/warchest/wonders), knowledge of war mechanics and commitment to getting pounded aren't particularly affected by size either. It is not that hard to educate and build up a new nation to the point where they can be competent in their range. Point is that putting in the effort to get 200 nations active, committed and built up for war isn't any harder than getting 100 people to do it. Sure, there's twice as many nations to look after but you also have twice as many people to look after them with.

 

Well that's where we disagree. Just by virtue of the fact that recruiting alliances are the ones looking for new members, they are taking members that wouldn't have the activity to look for an alliance and do their research on their own. Sure after those members join eventually their activity may increase or decrease, but that's identical for alliances that don't recruit as well, so that variance cancels out.

[Neo Uruk]

Good job spewing bullshit, like you usually do, as I never said any where Umbrella got rolled. I did say in the opening week Umbrella got hit hard, but clearly they weren't rolled, or even defeated.

 

GOONS on the other hand, well, 8k average NS speaks for itself. I don't get where NPL comes in there, as a whole lot more then NPL fought GOONS.

Yes, I'm the one spewing bullshit. Many people have claimed the war on Umbrella was a failure, yet some still believe they got rolled. That's the average person who thinks GOONS got "rolled."
 

Yes, you don't see where NPL getting tonked comes in to play. Good job on being blind. Do you do anything besides take the little things that support your argument while dismissing anything against it? GOONS took in a lot of new nations recently. That lowers ANS. GOONS obviously wasn't built the best in the first place. And yet, we fucked NPL up. We were demolishing Trash Can nations, as they were on average built even worse than NPL. Saying anyone else fought GOONS is really laughable, as I think maybe two or three other alliances barely got out of single-digit wars against GOONS. LoSS and NPL are the only alliances you could say "fought," and LoSS was done after the initial wave.

[Rayvon]

Taking this opportunity to shamelessly plug that NSO's slot usage is higher than all of those except NPO.

And we do our legwork manually  :awesome:

 

Well that's where we disagree. Just by virtue of the fact that recruiting alliances are the ones looking for new members, they are taking members that wouldn't have the activity to look for an alliance and do their research on their own. Sure after those members join eventually their activity may increase or decrease, but that's identical for alliances that don't recruit as well, so that variance cancels out.

 
:facepalm:

Edited June 1, 2013 by Rayvon

[smurthwaite]

Yes, I'm the one spewing bullshit. Many people have claimed the war on Umbrella was a failure, yet some still believe they got rolled. That's the average person who thinks GOONS got "rolled."
 

Yes, you don't see where NPL getting tonked comes in to play. Good job on being blind. Do you do anything besides take the little things that support your argument while dismissing anything against it? GOONS took in a lot of new nations recently. That lowers ANS. GOONS obviously wasn't built the best in the first place. And yet, we fucked NPL up. We were demolishing Trash Can nations, as they were on average built even worse than NPL. Saying anyone else fought GOONS is really laughable, as I think maybe two or three other alliances barely got out of single-digit wars against GOONS. LoSS and NPL are the only alliances you could say "fought," and LoSS was done after the initial wave.

I'm confused on how we got, as you say, tonked?  Seems to me that we were begging Goonies to come out of PM so we could all play.  If you are talking about the nations that were sub 5k NS at the start, even they kept throwing themselves into offensive wars, pounding the poor Goonies.  I was once lost in the fiction section too.  Let me help you find your wait out.  

 

Smurthwaite points to a sign that reads:  This way to nonfiction.  ---->

 

I hope he can read.....

[Neo Uruk]

I'm confused on how we got, as you say, tonked?  Seems to me that we were begging Goonies to come out of PM so we could all play.  If you are talking about the nations that were sub 5k NS at the start, even they kept throwing themselves into offensive wars, pounding the poor Goonies.  I was once lost in the fiction section too.  Let me help you find your wait out.  

 

Smurthwaite points to a sign that reads:  This way to nonfiction.  ---->

 

I hope he can read.....

I wish you could read.....

 

I'm confused as to how we tonked you too, as your coalition was the one with the numerical advantage.

Edited June 1, 2013 by Neo Uruk

[salsabeast1]

Yes, I'm the one spewing bullshit. Many people have claimed the war on Umbrella was a failure, yet some still believe they got rolled. That's the average person who thinks GOONS got "rolled."
 

Yes, you don't see where NPL getting tonked comes in to play. Good job on being blind. Do you do anything besides take the little things that support your argument while dismissing anything against it? GOONS took in a lot of new nations recently. That lowers ANS. GOONS obviously wasn't built the best in the first place. And yet, we fucked NPL up. We were demolishing Trash Can nations, as they were on average built even worse than NPL. Saying anyone else fought GOONS is really laughable, as I think maybe two or three other alliances barely got out of single-digit wars against GOONS. LoSS and NPL are the only alliances you could say "fought," and LoSS was done after the initial wave.

I wonder if you even believe what you tell your self.

[Starfox101]

I don't even want to get involved in this, but I facepalmed so hard I hit a few keys and figured I'd finish...

 

You could say we were defeated if we had been actively getting rolled by the main front or something. We were fighting NPL. But please, you can all point at GOONS stats while you say Umbrella got rolled too, despite them being in position for sanction until RnR's recruiting schemes paid off.

So your defense for saying you didn't get rolled is that Umbrella didn't get rolled? I'm not sure I'm tracking. Nobody here even mentioned Umbrella. Just for once, speak and think for yourself. Umbrella had a hell of a war machine, and that did not filter down to GOONS.

 

Your defense for saying GOONS not being rolled should be something like "We destroyed everyone who came at us." without even mentioning Umbrella. But then, that would be a lie too, considering the entire Top 40 was in peace while the rest of the alliance floated around 2, 3k NS. I wonder what the average NS of fighting GOONS nations was? Congrats on beating up 500 ns nations.

 

Yes, I'm the one spewing bullshit. Many people have claimed the war on Umbrella was a failure, yet some still believe they got rolled. That's the average person who thinks GOONS got "rolled."
 

Yes, you don't see where NPL getting tonked comes in to play. Good job on being blind. Do you do anything besides take the little things that support your argument while dismissing anything against it? GOONS took in a lot of new nations recently. That lowers ANS. GOONS obviously wasn't built the best in the first place. And yet, we fucked NPL up. We were demolishing Trash Can nations, as they were on average built even worse than NPL. Saying anyone else fought GOONS is really laughable, as I think maybe two or three other alliances barely got out of single-digit wars against GOONS. LoSS and NPL are the only alliances you could say "fought," and LoSS was done after the initial wave.

There is no correlation there. You cannot simply discredit everything one says because he made a controversial statement that could be argued. By the way, nobody even said that. This is quite possibly one of the worst arguments for victory I've ever seen. Can I discredit everything you say because you believe GOONS trumped all comers? In your eyes, that would be the case. You've discredited yourself with your own argument.

 

And everyone else only had single digit wars against GOONS because every nation above 8k NS was in peace mode. You can't fault others for the amount of wars because there were no quality (In regards to the rest of the alliance) nations available.

 

Anyway, if it was such a crushing victory for GOONS, why did you surrender? That doesn't correlate with victory in any sense. Nothing worse than people who quit, then come back claiming they won, or would have won if something went their way. Such a simple question gets a simple answer. Surrendering means you lost and were defeated. If you surrendered but won, I suggest you get a dictionary and try to understand what are doing next time, before you do it.

[Neo Uruk]

I don't even want to get involved in this, but I facepalmed so hard I hit a few keys and figured I'd finish...

 

So your defense for saying you didn't get rolled is that Umbrella didn't get rolled? I'm not sure I'm tracking. Nobody here even mentioned Umbrella. Just for once, speak and think for yourself. Umbrella had a hell of a war machine, and that did not filter down to GOONS.

 

Your defense for saying GOONS not being rolled should be something like "We destroyed everyone who came at us." without even mentioning Umbrella. But then, that would be a lie too, considering the entire Top 40 was in peace while the rest of the alliance floated around 2, 3k NS. I wonder what the average NS of fighting GOONS nations was? Congrats on beating up 500 ns nations.

 

There is no correlation there. You cannot simply discredit everything one says because he made a controversial statement that could be argued. By the way, nobody even said that. This is quite possibly one of the worst arguments for victory I've ever seen. Can I discredit everything you say because you believe GOONS trumped all comers? In your eyes, that would be the case. You've discredited yourself with your own argument.

 

And everyone else only had single digit wars against GOONS because every nation above 8k NS was in peace mode. You can't fault others for the amount of wars because there were no quality (In regards to the rest of the alliance) nations available.

 

Anyway, if it was such a crushing victory for GOONS, why did you surrender? That doesn't correlate with victory in any sense. Nothing worse than people who quit, then come back claiming they won, or would have won if something went their way. Such a simple question gets a simple answer. Surrendering means you lost and were defeated. If you surrendered but won, I suggest you get a dictionary and try to understand what are doing next time, before you do it.

You literally argued something that I wasn't saying. Good job. I've gotta give you props, you made the words all flowery. But at every point you tried to contest what I actually said, you failed.

[Sephiroth]

It was interesting to see this actually codified recently with the self-branding of an entire coalition as "Competence" and the implication that the other side was incompetent. For years we've had to hear about how DH et al. were able to maintain a powerful political potition because of their superior political skills, and lack of any competent opposition. When a grouping finally does emerge that soundly defeats them, they try to brush it off by reassuring themselves that, despite their inferior position at the moment, there is still some vague quality that makes them intrinsically better than those who defeated them. I have no doubt that civilizations have used this strategy for centuries, but it is highly amusing to see it play out in real time.

I thought them labeling themselves that seemed like a play on words, where you say one thing while meaning something else. Them for example being clearly the incompetent ones in that war, but calling themselves "competence" as a joke. If they really have deluded themselves into thinking "competence" was a descriptive word for their side over the other beyond a bad joke, then I kind of feel bad for them. It had the same kind of punch line to it as someone entering a competition with the name "Winner", but losing badly from the start.

 

Also comtempt drives politics, because if people didn't have contempt for others we'd all be patting each other on the back and not fighting each other.

 

Yeah, no.

 

The political position that Competence found itself in was not one brought about by its own incompetence, but rather by the inevitability of the cycle that is politics in this game world. Eventually, any leader will face a resistance of strength, just by the nature of what being a leader entails. If I need any proof, I can point to the coordination (or lack thereof) between "Equilibrium" alliances, the infighting between their alliances, and the face that they only narrowly achieved victory despite massive numerical and statistical advantages.

 

On the note of the OP, I've seen plenty of relationships built upon most respect. I can safely say that none of TOP's current treaty partners have anything less than our full respect, and that some of those relationships (MK and Umbrella come to mind) only began in the first place because of the mutual respect shared between both parties. In addition, I respect a few alliances opposing my own position- the New Pacific Order, who manages to survive, maintain political relevancy, and manipulate others on a scale unmatched in this world's history comes to mind- as well. Perhaps you feel that there is a lack of respect in alliance politics because your alliance has nothing worth respecting?

 

The position your side was put in was fully brought on by its own doing. While TOP is a respectable alliance, the same can't be said of many of the alliances who were on your side. To call them competent would be nothing more than a bad joke. The powers TOP has chosen to align itself with are anything but competent, mostly they've only had power as long as they have by trying harder in a world where many don't put much effort into power politics. However they were defeated in the last war and they can be defeated again, they would be foolish to mistake the lack of alliances who felt like ripping them apart with crippling reps as a sign of weakness or lack of ability to do so.

 

MK isn't in a position to do much of anything these days.

Edited June 2, 2013 by Methrage

[Lyner]

Certainly slot usage doesn't really indicate much about war ability. However, as you noted, it *does* indicate an alliance's activity, showing that it does not necessarily get diluted with greater size. The other factors that go into war ability, such as technical buildup (tech/warchest/wonders), knowledge of war mechanics and commitment to getting pounded aren't particularly affected by size either. It is not that hard to educate and build up a new nation to the point where they can be competent in their range. Point is that putting in the effort to get 200 nations active, committed and built up for war isn't any harder than getting 100 people to do it. Sure, there's twice as many nations to look after but you also have twice as many people to look after them with.

 

The "twice as many nations to look after" part is guaranteed and absolute, but the second part... not really, I'd say 30% chance per recruit

[Avakael]

I'm confused on how we got, as you say, tonked?  Seems to me that we were begging Goonies to come out of PM so we could all play.  If you are talking about the nations that were sub 5k NS at the start, even they kept throwing themselves into offensive wars, pounding the poor Goonies.

This. If all those GOONS nations (as many as 20 at once point) that were sitting between 10 and 15k NS (most of whom had started above 30-40k) actually all came out of PM at once instead of just leaked out in ones and twos, the few NPL members still standing in that range predicted we'd be in all sorts of crap- there were more GOONs with WRCs sitting there than we had nations in range, period. Fark, GO and FAN only had a few active people sitting there themselves that could have assisted, and you can forget about assistance from LoSS (when I spend 7 days being unable to locate a triumvir for coordination there's problems abound -_-). And then GOONS ballsed it up by having more than half of those nations not leave PM at all, with those who did leave either turtling, or coordinating poorly with other members, or a combination of both.

[Starfox101]

You literally argued something that I wasn't saying. Good job. I've gotta give you props, you made the words all flowery. But at every point you tried to contest what I actually said, you failed.

I don't even know why I bother. I expected somewhat of an intelligent response and instead I got a one line denial.

[Stealthkill]

I don't even know why I bother. I expected somewhat of an intelligent response and instead I got a one line denial.

You're arguing with Rey. You're better off arguing with a crumbling brick wall, because the wall will be more intelligent and more literate.

[Starfox101]

You're arguing with Rey. You're better off arguing with a crumbling brick wall, because the wall will be more intelligent and more literate.

Good point. Sometimes you just have to feed 'em though, lest they get too hungry and cause even more of a ruckus.

[Pingu]

There has been plenty of contempt around in the politics of Bob since at least Feb 2006. Why are we supposed to believe this is a new phenomenon?

[RevolutionaryRebel]

There has been plenty of contempt around in the politics of Bob since at least Feb 2006. Why are we supposed to believe this is a new phenomenon?

Because a large proportion of nations seem to be ruled by individuals with Attention Deficit Disorder. Or perhaps, long-term memory loss. Not enough fish oil in their diet.

[Rush Sykes]

There has been plenty of contempt around in the politics of Bob since at least Feb 2006. Why are we supposed to believe this is a new phenomenon?

 

Because the OP hopes to paint any agenda to kill his bloc as a new paradigm of acting on contempt. The purpose is to subtly say to the fringe alliances, "If SF-XX is the target of the next war, it is a hate filled maneuver that you should not support."