Why Democracies Don't Work

[PhysicsJunky]

especially during times of looming war when decisions must me made, huge problems would arise when a minority vote could block the majority from doing anything.

In joking fairness, depending on how you play this game the winners of most wars are often those who are too useless to be on the front line or just sit the war out entirely.

[Lusitan]

Kamino,

Not sure where your Mind is but you were FAR from being Emperor. Your popularity was due to the fact that you were active on the forum. Not because of Knowledge. You were made MoHA because of someone stepping down and handing the reighns to you.

Although I agree that DOC will not last much longer, I won't sit here and talk trash about them. They have good ideals but don't know how to implement them. I left DOC for personal reasons that won't be mentioned here.

I personally wish them all the luck and prosperity to survive in this game though

Sir, you have and always had my respect, both here and when you were in DOC

[WolfsPride]

Sir, you have and always had my respect, both here and when you were in DOC

DITTO

[King Thor]

Honestly I think it could work as long as you tweak it here and there. Say you set it up like the U.N. (sorta kinda) You have members go into different groups (Countries, CN Nations are really more of a state in a U.S. Sense) into the alliance based on their overall CN views each group has a leader that when something comes up that leader says basically what the majority of their group thinks to a council that would get the results from each group and get a decision that way, like an alliance within an alliance. Could fail, could work out great, or I could be completely off topic. Who knows?

Edited October 11, 2009 by King Thor

[The Mongol-Swedes]

The Black Guards would like to inform the community at large that we appreciate the praise and will continue to rock out with our bongs out well into the future. Also, DOC are a classy bunch and are fun to touch the sky with.

P.S. Kamino, you barely gave DOC a chance and publicly broadcast DOC's internal drama all over the open areas of the DOC forums, and likely contributed in your very special way to their woes by exacerbating the problem with your do-nothing whining. No class, brother! I'll thank you not to come over and kill my buzz, lest I introduce you to my 'other' green export.

Libertad o Muerte!

[PhysicsJunky]

Honestly I think it could work as long as you tweak it here and there. Say you set it up like the U.N.

You're a very funny man and I quite nearly turned the book to the side of my keyboard into one big Pollock style coffee stain .

[King Thor]

You're a very funny man and I quite nearly turned the book to the side of my keyboard into one big Pollock style coffee stain .

You know what I'm getting at

[PhysicsJunky]

You know what I'm getting at

Don't worry too much, you could be one of those people clamouring for a CN U.N, what makes people think a concept that has generally failed miserably with billions of dollars, armies and people dying every moment they don't succeed could be successfully imported into an anonymous internet game where entire alliances have been wiped off the face of the earth for what is essentially a copyright dispute (i.e. stealing guides) is beyond me. To top things off the real U.N can't even prevent piracy, and stopping tech raiding is generally why people keep putting the idea forward.

[Kzoppistan]

Who are you directing this at?

The OP. I understand his frustration but I think you get out of an alliance exactly what you put into it. If one expects the benefits but does not do the work, then they are hoping to profit off the sweat of another person's brow.

[Barron von Hammer]

I myself, while with the best of intentions, was single handily able to alienate a member who was of high caliber and bringing myself to unimaginable popularity. I was gaining political power by popularist support at unimaginable speeds, I was very well on my way to becoming Emperor. I had been able to create multiple changes in government with almost no question and ultimately damaging the system by having to many people in to many positions that could not be filled.

What on earth are you talking about Kamino? When I first read this post I was checking several times if you actually wrote it because of these accusations. First of all, the above is simply an outright lie. For starters, WE DONT HAVE AN EMPEROR. You spend paragraphs talking about how wrong we are in establishing a direct democracy and then claim you were on your way to emperor!? "Unimaginable popularity?" and "Gaining political power by popularist support at unimaginable speeds?" In fact lets others know as to the truth about what was going on. Your only involvement with the elective process was when you ran for the minor position of Ombudsman. And you lost, in fact you garnered only seven votes. That's it. In fact, you ended up withdrawing from that election, you didnt even see it through.

You resigned from DOV claiming that you wanted to "grow as a leader/politician." That is the crux of it. You should have stated that personally, democracies do not suit you instead of fabricating this stuff.

[Zizka]

Early on TOP was a direct democracy.

[Tamurin]

There are two things I'd like to add here:

1.) An alliance fails when the members give up. Not before. Every alliance fights inactivity or struggles to replace active members that left. The smaller and younger the alliance, the harder it is. But you only fail when you stop trying.

2.) CN-history has seen all kinds of alliances with all kinds of systems. And for every system, there are examples where it worked out great and where it failed catastrophically. The best system won't survive the worst people. And the best people can make a horrible system work. It's the people.

And that's all I'm going to say.

[WolfsPride]

Thank you Barron.

Thank you Tam

[shilo]

Any method works, if you have the members making it work.

This is something I want to emphasize.

The failure of any alliance, and any governmental structure, is above all things to be blamed on the people within the alliance not being able to make it work.

I believe any system, even a fully direct democratic system can work if you got enough dedicated and smart people within the alliance.

However, no matter where someone stands on the issue democracy vs. autocracy, every alliance must in some way integrate its membership and their opinions, cause ultimately no matter how autocratic an alliance is, all members can still vote with their feet.

Edited October 11, 2009 by shilo

[iamwalrus]

Before I begin I would first like to define what I call a success in this game:

Success: To live peacefully in a community of friends, grow your nation in strength and form lasting bonds in the world of Digiterra.

Now, Direct Democracies can be successful and NEAT is a prime example. I would argue that NEAT is an example of a direct democracy in its truest form. Not one nation holds a title or government position in our alliance, and all decisions are made through informal consensus or formal voting. We have been defeated in war but the bonds formed prior to our defeat through cooperation in the formation of NEAT held strong enough to allow us to reform and we have been able to grow our nations powerful and in cooperation with other alliances.

Finally, I would like to say that the OP is mistaken and disgruntled in his analysis. DOC is not dead and as an alliance forming agreements with them, I think we will all see that DOC though may have some issues (as all alliances do) will be strong as ever in the future.

Cheers DOC!

Cheers LSF!

Cheers SWF!

Cheers NEAT!

Cheers Direct Democracies!

[zimmerwald1915]

Cheers DOC!

Cheers LSF!

Cheers SWF!

Cheers NEAT!

Cheers Direct Democracies!

No shoutout? You make me sad.

[shahenshah]

Honestly I think it could work as long as you tweak it here and there. Say you set it up like the U.N. (sorta kinda) Y

UN works?

[iamwalrus]

No shoutout? You make me sad.

I was shouting out to the direct democracies.

You know we love The International. (The best protectors in the game, imo)

[Barron von Hammer]

Edit: I just read your apology Kamino.

Edited October 12, 2009 by Barron von Hammer

[Mathias]

After reading this essay, I want to topple the world governments and ensure direct democracy for all.

Who's with me?

[zimmerwald1915]

I was shouting out to the direct democracies.

You know we love The International. (The best protectors in the game, imo)

/me looks at LSF's and SWF's constitutions...

Yup, they're much more directly democratic than we are

[Haven for Peace]

I used to be a real fan of democracies, and even re-wrote and put forth many amendments for the USN's charter to play around and see what worked the best. the only plus they have imo is they give members something to do during peace time (run for elections, all that jazz). That really was it. the major down sides i noticed were If a majority of the government people become inactive the system essentially stops to a crawl, because of friendships or fear of that person leaving, people would not try to forcibly remove them, and we would have to wait until the next election to get active members in government. Another huge problem with elections was if a long time government member did not get re-elected, they would essentially leave the alliance and create a new one, or join another alliance. This usually created huge exoduses as members would usually follow these leaders. The third major flaw was If someone or a group of people did not get what they wanted in a vote they would leave the alliance, especially during times of looming war when decisions must me made, huge problems would arise when a minority vote could block the majority from doing anything. This too would create huge exoduses after massive amounts of drama which are just exhausting and tiresome.

From what I saw at the USN, Democracy did more to hurt the alliance then help it. Just look at the pre-karma war stats and post-karma war stats, not being able to reach a decision about the war hurt them more then the war would have. and that is why I am now a member of a democracy-free alliance now

I agree on the things you say here 'cause I've seen it happened before, but I think that the point of an alliance being democratic is so the membership uses their power or have power available should it be needed. If the membership doesn't use what's available to them, it would be their fault... NOT the system. Also, I never understand why people leave an alliance because a vote didn't go their way. I mean, what's the point of being in a democracy then? If you want choice, you have to accept others' choices too.

There are two things I'd like to add here:

1.) An alliance fails when the members give up. Not before. Every alliance fights inactivity or struggles to replace active members that left. The smaller and younger the alliance, the harder it is. But you only fail when you stop trying.

2.) CN-history has seen all kinds of alliances with all kinds of systems. And for every system, there are examples where it worked out great and where it failed catastrophically. The best system won't survive the worst people. And the best people can make a horrible system work. It's the people.

And that's all I'm going to say.

I completely agree with this.

[Mentor]

Democracies do not work in real life and do not work in CN either, a government which uses elements of a democratic system always works better

[Kroknia]

Pluralist Direct Democracies don't work and never will. The reason ones work in CN and in the real world(at least as best they can before the forceful smashing which seems to coincide with their foundings...) is that none are built on pluralism. We have LSF which is based on a few specific sects of socialist philosophy. Other left wing alliances do the same. These are not the only ones that are direct democracies in the game. Old Guard was and remains(To my knowledge) a direct democracy. It hit a big stone in the road with increased inactivity and membership ignorance to the world, but in the early Citadel and early Q days, it was thriving due to this democratic system. The cohesive force in OG was to be a proud, independent and honorable alliance. When the Q split the alliance into sects, and the independent part of the alliance ceased, it failed to thrive in the manner it had been before and it is now in its current place. Centripetal force is what is needed in an alliance. That can be a leader as Tyga professes(to place the long term survival of anything on leaders seems to be a terrible idea to me, but to each their own I guess), on an idea like the LSF or on allianceism like most alliances tend to really have at the center of things. Without this force, there will only be degradation in an alliance and its eventual destruction regardless of Monarch or Democracy.

[Arcturus Jefferson]

Heh, I know where you're coming from Kroknia.