[FT] Rebuilding Our Broken Community

Day 1,153, 02:32 • Published in Canada Canada • by AugustusV



Day 1,153 | January 16th, 2011
[FT] Issue #6 | Rebuilding Our Broken Community








Constant problem's plague eCanada. Corruption, greed, lies, and division are some of the many that are literally threatening to tear the country apart, especially when certain individuals run off with almost the entire treasury. This is a problem which is hurting our nation far more than any well-planned enemy invasion could. Why? Because we are destroying our community, and if this game stands for nothing else, it stands for the friendships formed and the team spirit that we should theoretically encourage and have. Please note that Alliances have risen and fallen based on how close or fractured the community within it was.

Our problems are much deeper than the superficial conclusion that "we have crooks in the system"; the problem pertains to the much deeper issue of how we deal with each other.

On the issue of psychology, Rigour6 in a new article has again used his pragmatic approach to set some clear clues, warnings, and downright in-your-face conclusions on why we are failing as a community.

Let us note that most recently we have given rise to a new concern, that of corruption within the Canadian Armed Forces, and of how some of our most dedicated and trusted players such as Coda may have engaged in some immoral behavior. In this flurry of opinionated articles each trying to shed a new light on the situation, I would like to try and keep perspective, and offer my bluntly honest opinion.

Max Maher has had a legitimate concern here. He was tipped off that there could be corruption in the CAF and was given some solid proof. Why do we all despise him and call him a traitor? Why do we treat those who care or who have the courage to care with such disgust?

Let's keep it clear fellas, no matter who gave this information, and no matter if you are CAF or not, or if you like Max Maher or not, facts are facts. We are so used to putting emotion in front of ration that we immediately cling to other issues such as "well Rolo Tahamsee gave us the information and don't like him cause whose he to talk about corruption, so we don't even want to look at the proof", or "Coda would never do this guys". Anyone remember 1ronman? One of our most trusted players who ended up being one of our most rotten? Yeah... "he'd never do it", Deja Vu. I'm not saying Coda is a crook like 1ronman, but it's time we stop blindly trusting people.

The point is Max Maher is not a traitor. Give the man a break and respect the fact that he knows very well how many people will start hating him for opening the subject, he knows he may become a unpopular fellow, but yet he choose to do the right thing. I find that highly respectable.

The problem is some if not most of us only think of our friends, of our political, military, and social goals, and try to frame our behavior around that.

If you look around we are currently full of "trolling", which by definition defies logic. Trolling is the "art" of arguing for the sake of arguing, and for causing someone else anger and grief and somehow taking a sick pleasure it in all. We have people who never take anything seriously because "they're just too good for that", frankly I find that to be a fear of becoming vulnerable to criticism but nevertheless we are becoming a society of "too cool for school" trolls.

Also please note humor is amazing. It keeps stuff fun and us laughing. But trolling is not the type of humor we need. "TemujinBC iz a butt" is harmless fun, "TemujinBC you're stupid irl and and anarchy sucks" is destructive trolling. Sometimes trolling can be funny to some, but it hurts our society and creates division regardless. Teasing can indeed be funny, but teasing has never led to anything good and only enforces the bad character of someone who props his own broken self-esteem at the expense of others. Bottom point, teasing leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to moar suffering. Someone trolled will troll back and may even develop a habit which further hurts society.

I myself have went against former friends like TCO, TemujinBC, Acacia Mason, I have went against possible political strategic organizations for my career such as the DAL, CPF, etc, I am now even going against the CAF and Coda, whom I still respect. I do it because when I see unfairness, when I see bullshit, when I see people acting in ways I think is wrong I can't help but act on principle and refuse to stay quiet. People constantly hate on me for that, and most oftentimes it's very much personal, because I have either directly or indirectly interfered with their selfish objectives or because they think I have something personal against them. It's the common defensive mentality that we need to rid ourselves of.

Another problem we have: making everything personal and bringing RL into arguments.

Have you fellas heard of Lavis Knight? This guy is the definition of a player who sticks by principle. He plays the game for some mental stimulation and for connecting in a friendly manner with the community. He quits every organization and refuses to deal with people who do what he finds is immoral. He has quit the CAF because of this recent issue, even though he got free supplies when he was in there. This guy represent what we all should strive to become. A friendly community based on principle and on enjoying this game for it's more interesting aspects, not just the infantile and pathetic trolling.

Regarding Coda, my opinion is that she clearly didn't think it was "ok" what she was about to do, and Kronos Q also said it didn't seem right, and if she wanted to do the right thing Coda would have approached congress honestly and told them the situation. I'm sure we'd all let her do what she wanted to do if it made sense. I don't understand why people don't just apologize and move on, and why we need to get so defensive and fracture our society into groups who support Coda, and those who do not. Even if we do agree or disagree, why must there be so much disrespect and not why instead have an open discussion where potential friends an allies can agree to disagree and/or make their points better understood without raging like little monkeys?

The greater issue I was trying to explain with eCanada is that we have created a destructive culture that cannot breed anything but more problems. And put on trial as many individuals as you like, this won't end until we change our mentality. It's true not everyone will change at once, but if enough of us take the torch maybe others will follow. Why can't we just all sit around and smoke a nice spiff?

We continually fracture our community. We do not work on principle but rather we work based on our selfish goals and wonder why we breed corruption. We cannot build a community by hiding the truth, we build a community by rallying around a common principle. We must rally around a common value, not a person or group, for all said parties could easily turn the wrong way.

For those who have seen the movie "pay it forward" (Google it if you didn't), our community works the same. What makes all the difference is in what we choose to pay forward. What will YOU pay forward?



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Octavian_F is the CEO of the Investment Bank CIBC, eCanadian congressman, and Chief Editor of the Financial Times.