Join the new world

Initially I intended to talk about something else, but i`m kinda “happy” right now (because of some wine) so I decided to translate into English a few weeks old article of mine regarding something that it`s so extremely important..but not talked about..it`s the social component of the game..

Often I remember the seductive title “eRepublik, a political, economical, military and social simulator” . For many citizens military career it`s not so great, economically as well, and politically they`re “nobodies”. So what`s left? Well, it`s the social component, which compared to other three it`s less visible. I mean, military it`s simple, you are a great general, or you are not. Economically, you can just take a look to your profile and you know that you`re a rich citizens or barely a day-by-day survivor. Politically, again it`s simple to measure your success, you are o congressman supported and elected by tens/hundreds of citizens, or not. On the other hand, your social success it`s much harder to measure, harder to pinpoint its quantification. Maybe newspaper subscriptions used to be such tool for measurements, but I don’t know nowadays .Really ironic it`s that military, politically and economically components are completely eclipsed by the social one. The truth is that Social (and its need to be satisfied) is the SCOPE of this game, while others are just the TOOLS to achieve it. Ultimately, all that matters is your citizen`s image among others, not writing there “field marshal” instead of “private”, nor a higher virtual number beside your gold icon. In these conditions, the most important aspect of the game should be the social, and if we take a look there we may find some really interesting stuff.

Any of us, any animal, any being, has in brain an extremely important region: primitive brain. In this strategically positioned right in the middle of the brain portion lies basic instincts: instincts of primal fear, reactions, sex, unconditioned reflexes, need of food, etc. These are common for all animals, but we also share another very important instinct, without which life would be impossible: the auto-conservation instinct. Ever wonder why a heart-broken, sad, hungry, with no reason to live on monkey can`t just jump from the tree to kill herself? Well, she can`t, the auto-conservation instinct it`s way too strong and FORCES the monkey to do anything that it takes to survive and to procreate, so no suicide allowed. Well, the human it`s a special animal.

We share the same instinct that stops us to hurt ourselves, true, but we CAN by-pass that primitive brain, if we WISH. That`s because our logical processes are hierarchically higher than basic instincts (but lower than unconditional reflexes). So, a monkey can`t kill herself because her brain it`s not developed enough in order for her Cortex to outmuscle her Primitive Brain, but we human can. Instinctively you pull your hand out of fire, but if you WISH you can bypass your primitive brain and keep it there, although it burns you. We can bypass almost all our basic instincts, even the sexual one when we see a nice lady on the street almost provoking us 😛 But it`s much harder to by-pass your auto-conservation instinct than abstain from sex. People managing to do that by-pass in order to hurt themselves or even suicide, are simply called “psychically unstable”

Those two instincts, auto-conservation and procreation, rules the actions and life of all beings. The peacock shows his big colored tail, the lion swanks with his mane, the man puts forth his muscles, the woman dresses a short skirt. But, again, unlike animals humans associate a strong psychological component with the auto-conservation instinct. It`s not a matter of ONLY conservation, humans tend to have a very good opinion about themselves and their smartness-beauties-whatever. No matter if this opinion it`s at subconscious level, at the conscious level but dissimulated verbally with false modesty, or conscious and plain-spoken ostentatious. In other words, a human can`t trample himself, it`s either irony or vanity, the true thoughts about himself are hidden. If the interior fussiness it`s so great, and one it`s having such a bad estimation about himself and his life, the by-pass we talked earlier can occur leading ultimately to suicide.

Well, now let`s look at eRepublik. The ultimate goal of this game it`s “differentiation”, not to get rich, not to be tank, the target is to be “somebody” in social`s eyes. The competition spirit exists in human`s nature from the beginning of his conscious long-long time ago, and without this competition I believe we`d still be primitive right now. Who hunted most animals it was to be the tribal chief (and owners of women too, remember 🙂 ), so who invented the best weapons was the “alpha male” in social eyes of the tribe. In eRepublik the competition for social supremacy is the same, and the battle fields are economical, military and politically modules. In these conditions we all must accept that almost everybody tends to “color” himself with attractive (and often false) qualities, hoping and waiting for rewards. And of course, new and unknown citizens tends to provoke for fights (often way too passionate, which leads to permanent bans) older and famous ones, in order to get their names known.

As I said, even in real world humans are guided by these principles, for example if they do a good job they tend to reward themselves over-appreciated. If they have the chance they`ll try to prove that they are smarter, better, more attractive than others (sometime friends, colleagues, even family). Some are really easy to spot in their attempts; other uses much subtle ways, being stopped by shame to exaggerate. So we have “half-truths” or “lie by omission” used to create a better “image’ of one`s. If in real world people keep restless to fight the war “who`s lying nicer”, which one is cooler, which one is more successful, of course in eRepublik this war it`s more ferocious, no scruple, exaggerations are something common. That`s because the anonymous statute helps with the interior fight against shame/guilty feeling. Some citizens are exaggerating so much with auto-appreciating ( “no one have my value”, “i`m the best” , “i`ve done for this country more than anybody”, etc), that themselves cut the rope and roll it up around their neck, with little chances to fool anybody. The “virtual syndrome” sometimes leads to action with no finesse at all, so we have ugly guys/girls pretending to be top models, poor ones describing their Ferrari, mediocre claim to be smartest in the world, mean and hateful ones trying to pose into angels, etc. All this until the virtual space intersects the real-world. The anonymity had been dissolved so does the shame-proof lying.

It`s crystal clear that politic part of the game it`s one of the best opportunities for taking this social battles. It`s all about who`s lying more beautiful and ingenious about himself, starting from a bigger or smaller amount of true. Also, military module gives birth to such “enemies” that keep fighting over and over again, having the occasion to once again… exaggerate a little, about them, about their countries.

Having read and accepted these ideas, understanding the resorts governing citizens and their actions, should be muuuch easier to understand words and facts in eRepublik. From this point of view, the social one, eRepublik really is no different than any other real-world first step of colonization and starting to build up a society. We`re having leaders-wannabe, citizens happy enough to stay behind and watch, visionaries, risk-assuming and daring citizens, we have fights for supremacies and modeling the countries, we have thieves, we have priests trying to spread kindness, we have citizens that hates everybody else, et caetera.

So eRepublik is mainly a social simulator, exactly what seems to be fader. The ultimate goal is to obtain social recognition and interior rewards. Some get this for real. Others try to steal it, subtle or not, awkward or not. Some are aggressive, other are softer due to education or plain inability. And those that don`t admit the ideas in this article have 99 % chances to be hypocrites. But 1 % exceptions don`t mean that everybody can claim to be an “exception”. Just like there are 1 % men that have never ever done that “lonely, shamefully dirty job in bathroom”, but 99 % of them claims to be part of the 1 % exceptions 🙂

This been told (hopefully someone will read so far🙂 ), it would be a good question: what do you think about the fellas asking your vote? How much is it truth in their words? And how much it`s just the social experiment?