Mindless Soldiers of a Mindless War living Mindless Lives
Day 681, 08:39
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Published in USA 
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by
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by Socialist Freedom Org
BY ALEX LORRE - SFP Party Member
So this article is in response to closed-minded comments of the recent Socialist Freedom Party advertisement. I don't blame people for hating anything mentioning socialism or communism because that is how most people in the world are brought up. It is really closed-minded seeing as how I guarantee none of you know what it is but that is also how you were brought up so once again not entirely your fault. I am not here to convert anyone to open minded socialism or anything close. I am however trying to give my opinions and some factual reasons why certain kinds of comments are dumb at best and why people should actually give the SFP , as an online game based political party, a chance.
Now the comments I am referring to are comments like "Not getting to spend my money myself takes all the fun out of the game!" and "I don't want people telling me how to spend my money!" and the always genius "Eww socialism..." comments. I'm not going to name names and these are not literal quotes just so people can't get that impression. These are quotes I see OFTEN so don't think I'm picking on any one person.
Now that my disclaimer is out of the way...
Why does getting your own money make this game any more fun?
If getting your own money and being forced to buy worse stuff than you can get for free by working for minimum wage at a commune is fun to you then you must have a very backwards sense of what is fun. Personally what is fun for me is playing this game and doing better than I was and not worse and, since I can do better at the commune working for a group of people that I am a part of, instead of one person putting profits off of MY work into his own pocket, I think that is quite a lot of fun.
Where do you get the idea someone will tell you how to spend your money?
Do NOT tell me "that's what socialism/communism is!" because you are wrong. Very very wrong. No one tells you how to spend your money. If someone says they do then they are lying. Simple fact. You get payed minimum wage, and you can do with that whatever you want. But what people don't seem to get is that, in addition to that one dollar, you get free food, weapons, and moving tickets. But there is so much more that you get when you join SFP that can't be measured!
Seriously if you think all this economics stuff is boring come check out our IRC channel! I PROMISE you won't be disappointed. Unless you like to be boring... in which case you probably will... But no joke... until you get involved in a fun, close-knit, friendly community like the SFP you are only playing a small fraction of this game.
Sure the game is about the game and we talk about the game in both the forums and IRC. You can always ask for help and there are people there who will do whatever they can to help you. We also have brilliant people like Osmany Ramon and crazy old farts like Phoenix Quinn (just to name two out of the many) who write philosophical and economical theory about the socialist movement and how it applies in the game. It's just nuts the crazy in depth things we discuss!
But on the other side we also spend hours on IRC talking about real life and whatever random crap we come up with! Everyday I race to get on IRC and spend hours there chatting with everyone from the SFP because we are all a great big family, everyone is familiar with each other, we all joke around and act like idiots, and have the most fun of any party I guarantee! And that little extra bit, I think, gives a nice rebuttal to the last comment type I mentioned.
So, while you may not choose to be socialists (or even open-minded), I just wanted people to know the truth about what is being said about us and perhaps highlight the fun side of the party that many people seem to miss.
So this article is in response to closed-minded comments of the recent Socialist Freedom Party advertisement. I don't blame people for hating anything mentioning socialism or communism because that is how most people in the world are brought up. It is really closed-minded seeing as how I guarantee none of you know what it is but that is also how you were brought up so once again not entirely your fault. I am not here to convert anyone to open minded socialism or anything close. I am however trying to give my opinions and some factual reasons why certain kinds of comments are dumb at best and why people should actually give the SFP , as an online game based political party, a chance.
Now the comments I am referring to are comments like "Not getting to spend my money myself takes all the fun out of the game!" and "I don't want people telling me how to spend my money!" and the always genius "Eww socialism..." comments. I'm not going to name names and these are not literal quotes just so people can't get that impression. These are quotes I see OFTEN so don't think I'm picking on any one person.
Now that my disclaimer is out of the way...
Why does getting your own money make this game any more fun?
If getting your own money and being forced to buy worse stuff than you can get for free by working for minimum wage at a commune is fun to you then you must have a very backwards sense of what is fun. Personally what is fun for me is playing this game and doing better than I was and not worse and, since I can do better at the commune working for a group of people that I am a part of, instead of one person putting profits off of MY work into his own pocket, I think that is quite a lot of fun.
Where do you get the idea someone will tell you how to spend your money?
Do NOT tell me "that's what socialism/communism is!" because you are wrong. Very very wrong. No one tells you how to spend your money. If someone says they do then they are lying. Simple fact. You get payed minimum wage, and you can do with that whatever you want. But what people don't seem to get is that, in addition to that one dollar, you get free food, weapons, and moving tickets. But there is so much more that you get when you join SFP that can't be measured!
Seriously if you think all this economics stuff is boring come check out our IRC channel! I PROMISE you won't be disappointed. Unless you like to be boring... in which case you probably will... But no joke... until you get involved in a fun, close-knit, friendly community like the SFP you are only playing a small fraction of this game.
Sure the game is about the game and we talk about the game in both the forums and IRC. You can always ask for help and there are people there who will do whatever they can to help you. We also have brilliant people like Osmany Ramon and crazy old farts like Phoenix Quinn (just to name two out of the many) who write philosophical and economical theory about the socialist movement and how it applies in the game. It's just nuts the crazy in depth things we discuss!
But on the other side we also spend hours on IRC talking about real life and whatever random crap we come up with! Everyday I race to get on IRC and spend hours there chatting with everyone from the SFP because we are all a great big family, everyone is familiar with each other, we all joke around and act like idiots, and have the most fun of any party I guarantee! And that little extra bit, I think, gives a nice rebuttal to the last comment type I mentioned.
So, while you may not choose to be socialists (or even open-minded), I just wanted people to know the truth about what is being said about us and perhaps highlight the fun side of the party that many people seem to miss.
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Awesome article, Alex.
Truth be told, we - as Americans - an raised from to hate all things "red". It ashame that mor people cannot do the little research to see what Socialism is all about.
Aside from that, why do people bring their RL issues into the game anyway? It's a shame. The "NEW WORLD" is an alternative life... an "eLife", and should not be subjected to the dumb, ignorant influences out RL.
Oh well, I guess some will NEVER understand. Maybe if they check out the Forums and IRC, they will!
JUDE'S JOURNAL: http://www.erepublik.com/en/newspaper/jude-s-journal-196353" target="_blank">http://www.erepublik.com/en/newspaper/ju[..]96353
Viva la Revolucion!
Good article, explaining some things that needed explaining. And so true this:
"But no joke... until you get involved in a fun, close-knit, friendly community like the SFP you are only playing a small fraction of this game."
Zuul approves this message.
Er, ummm, harumph...
This one really made me chortle: >> "I don't want people telling me how to spend my money!"
Nobody's forcing anybody to work in a commune. And the money's not real anyway, so who gives a flying penguin bowl?
And of course it's true: socialists do have more fun!
Good article. People hate socialism these days for no reason other than they've been told to. They don't understand the benefits, let alone the drawbacks.
Good stuff Alex
While I'm not a big fan of communism (yes I'm actually educated on the subject) and is a totally different topic, this game lends itself quite well to the socialism concept in general. It is a valid work model that can be used, and regardless of my personal RL preferences this is a game, I can still choose to respect another players preference in playing the game. Comments like "Eww...socialism" is simply childish.
I'm not much of a Marxian in RL, but I understand this game well enough to understand that in-game socialism is both (a) a hell of a lot of fun and (b) probably inevitable on a large-scale unless there are dramatic changes to the economy module.
I'll link my last article because it describes the process by which in-game free market ideology undermines the in-game free market. http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/a-terrorist-reads-the-global-economy-963017/1/20" target="_blank">http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/a-te[..]1/20
All that noise aside, however, groups like SPF and Bruck's Canucks are where to go if you wanna play for real.