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PQ, that's me, the official cantakerous old windbag of the SFP, recently caught up with Alex Lorre, self-proclaimed village idiot of the Socialist Freedom Party. As we and other party workers and allies from the Bear Cavalry loaded crates of rifles onto "Freedom One", the SFP's magic bus...

...in prepartion for the Cavalry's participation in yet another liberation war resistance operation, I managed to ask Alex some questions.

As usual, his perspective was unique and interesting. So thought I'd share it with y'all.

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Interview with Alex Lorre


What did you want to be when you were 12 years old?

Hmm... what grade was that... 7th? 8th? It's kinda funny actually I wanted to join the army with my cousin, who was my best friend during my childhood, and we were going to be archaeologists when we got out, like Indiana Jones. Now I'm a conciencious objecting pacifist, have no real respect for my cousin, and want to leave civilization after college 😛 But I still think archaeology is cool!


I've heard you're planning on running for Congress again? Why?

Well I'm running for congress this time because I want to help out the SFP. I also kinda want to know what its like to be a politician in a nation where politics is actually detailed like it is here in the USA. And of course pushing far-left policies as best as I can is a big part of it.


You have an interesting and varied experience playing eRep. You've been a Greek citizen, a Slovakian citizen and now an American. Do you recommend "trying out" different nationalities? Does it make the game more fun and interesting?

I would DEFFINITELY recommend trying out different nationalities. But more than just "different" nationalities I would strongly recommend becoming part of a smaller nationality. You experience things so differently when you become an active part of a small community which is almost impossible to avoid if you live in a small nation.

I started eRepublik as my old citizen, Josh Mahurin, in Greece under complete Turkish occupation. So right from the start I sought out fellow eGreeks (most of which were real Greeks) and became part of an underground resistance community.


Greek Resistance Fighter

That was a BLAST! It was so amazing to actually be an integral part of a nation and be responsible for bringing it up from occupation, into its initial phase of existence, past threats of takeovers and reconquest, and into stability. The only real problem was the language barrier and the lack of reliable online translating services. This is why I left the game for a while, which, coincidentally, happened to be during the Operation Turkish Delight period.

When I came back I started to realize just how nationalistic all my old "friends" were and it kinda sickened me and ruined eGreece for me. This is also what later ruined Slovakia for me, though the nationalists in Slovakia were far from friends.

That is the main problem with small nations. Nationalism. Some people try to defend it by saying that its necessary to protect small nations from threats. But really all it is is an excuse to discriminate and it really ruins this game. But, despite that, I would still say becoming part of a small nation is an amazing experience. Much more amazing than reading this really long answer 😛


You've often described yourself as an "anarcho-primitivist". What does that mean to you?

Hehe that's tricky... see for me I'm always thinking about things and all my little decisions about the millions of things running through my head end up making up my beliefs. So if you ask me how I feel about certain specific things I can usually tell you, but the why is all tied in with every other thing. Everything for me is related to everything else. Now, after saying that, I will try to do as best a job I can at answering your actual question despite what I've just explained 🙂 .

First off anarcho-primitivism in a rough shell is the belief that both technology and government, since government was invented as well, are bad and alienate people from each other and existence.

To me this means that people have progressively built up these lies inside their own heads that they "need" so many things that really they don't need at all and are actually harmful to them. Government, running water, electricity, agriculture, the list goes on and on. People lose skills and the mental capacity that came with them by putting off their responsibilities onto these supposedly helpful things.

People think that this is justified by the increase in production. But really what is the point of production? To meet the needs of people. However with technology and the subsequent increase in production comes increase in population and other needs that in turn increase the need for even more production. This is just a big cycle that won't stop until the world is destroyed and life is wiped out.

People need to realize that there is no need to produce so much if we get rid of the needs that we created this produce to fill.

Once we do away with luxuries we see only the need for food. People that raised their eyebrows at my mentioning of agriculture as a harmful technology think that I've just defeated myself by mentioning we need food. However with agriculture comes and increase in population. An increase in population means we need more food, which leads to the expansion of agriculture.

Skip ahead and you see the population's need for land conflicting with the need for that land to grow food to feed them. So agriculture ends up killing the population, not to mention the environment when you start changing climate to open up more land for agriculture.

This is all a horribly explained mess that doesn't even begin to adequately explain anything to anyone and is taking up way too much space as a horrid wall of text that no one wants to read so here is a quick conclusion statement.

The only way to have food without conflicting expansionary needs is to only eat what grows naturally, thus keeping a natural S curve population cap and keeping the whole world in balance.

Now since I explained this atrociously, anyone who wants to ask questions can feel free to do so either in PM's or whatever and I will answer them as best as I can. Hopefully reading this will show you that questions need to be specific for better answers.

PQ takes a note to ask better questions next time...


Which do think is more important to an anarchist, studying philosophy or studying economics, and why?

Philosophy definitely.

Philosophy can include economics first of all and second of all it can include EVERYTHING else. However the most important thing about philosophy is that it teaches people to examine what they believe and draw conclusions about that which lead to spiritual growth and a deeper understanding of themselves and the world around them.

Spirituality is ingrained in the way I live and think and is as interrelated with my beliefs about anarcho-primitivism as my answers are with your questions. Dialectics 🙂 (thanks Ramon)


What's up with the Socialist Freedom Party? Why did you join it? Do you think eUSA citizens should support it?

The what? I don't know what you are talking about... Moving on!

No but seriously the SFP is amazing. Just saying.

I joined because it had socialist in the name but I stayed because it had socialists in the party.

Like I was talking about with that feeling of connection and importance that is so much fun in small nations, the SFP is the answer for that in large nations like eUSA. The relationships I have formed with my fellow party members are so strong that I would love to meet and spend the day with any single one of them.

I would definitely say that the American citizens should be supporting the SFP. To leave ideological reasons aside (there are WAY too many to list), the SFP is full of honest, hard working, committed, intelligent, caring people who have been an integral part of getting the eUSA territories back from foreign control via the Bear Cavalry. How much better can mere mortals get?


What's the most fun thing about the Socialist Freedom Party for you?

IRC! I rush onto IRC everyday and spend hours chatting with everyone I can because everyone is so much fun to talk with about anything. They are also all mature and intellectually gifted people so its an amazing experience just talking with them.


Some far-left parties, like the SFP, have members with a wide variety of opinions and viewpoints that they express in various ways through their game play, ranging from communist to anarchist to liberal-democrat to whatever, Other far-lefites around the world have a more doctinaire approach. Which do you think will be more successful (in whatever way you define success) in the long run?

Well the definition of success is the big thing there lol. I personally define success as changing the way people think and express themselves which leads to changing how they live. The "doctrinairy" approach can't do this.

That is the same approach most major religions have taken and look what we have. A bunch of book-reciting zombies who don't even try to comprehend what they are saying, let alone live it for the right reasons. In my opinion people who do good things for the wrong reasons deserve no more responsibility than people who do bad things on accident. So the only way to make sure that doesn't happen is to push for maximum free speech and putting the focus on creative, intellectual discussion, debate, and education. I think that answered your question...


I could make an argument that eRepublik is nothing like real life. Nobody really starves. Nobody really dies. There's no pollution. And with the eRep-Plus extension, instant language translation is built in too. So... isn't eRepublik already a workers paradise?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! No. Not even close. Not even close to close. I would love for all of those things to be able to be added to this game because, if they were, they would all be HORRIBLE! Right now this game doesn't really show broad spectrum effects of how things in the new world are going. The game mechanics right now make exploitation almost mandatory. Luckily far-left parties like the SFP and other members of the Internationale are working on ways around this with the creation of communes and forum based, democratic organization. We can't make everything perfect with the conditions we are forced to work with, but we are doing our best to make things better for everyone who wants equality, freedom, and cooperation.