the threat of SCRABMAN?
fingerguns
Read Scrabman's article here.
"It is very unfortunate that so many players have left the USA to become anarchists abroad (or have stayed here and continued to tear at the government from within). GLaDOS is a brilliant tactician and he is an American in RL. In fact, I admire him for how well he does what he does even though it is so very destructive and divisive. Just remember that PEACE and many other such players play the game for different reasons than many Americans do (again it's the role play vs. game play aspect). While most of us play this game to build something better than what we have in RL there are many others who just want to destroy, mock, and disrupt. Don't let them win their game at the expense of ours."
Destroy:
Any country with high iron.
Scrabman has made it clear that he isn't messing around. eRep is srs bsns and he is King of eAmerica. The virtual power he wields is not only erection engorging, but a very serious responsibility. He speaks about a game within a game that only the most powerful and important people in the eWorld can participate in. This secret, smoky, back room world of political and military takeovers where a handful of the most elite thinkers of our age strategize world domination is beyond your comprehension and certainly your grasp. You cannot know about it...for your own good. The end will justify whatever means they deem necessary.
You know, that sounds an awful lot like a role playing game. I guess you could call it 'a role playing game within a role playing game' but considering it is all eRepublik, it really is the same game. Many claim to have divined the great purpose of eRep and what it means to 'win' through analyzing game mechanics. I think these people need to take a closer look. The game is designed to never end and cost you a lot of money. You know why? Because it's a fucking website. It's a business. In the world of the internet, there are 2 kinds of currency- money and attention. Attention is actually more valuable, but money keeps the lights on.
We participate in eRepublik with the knowledge that it won't end unless we want it to. We can leave the game at any time and as far as we are concerned, it doesn't exist anymore. But until we choose to leave, this world is here and it is active and changing. It is influenced by your participation and the participation of others. In this game, the only power is in numbers. You don't just want friends, you want supporters. You want to find people who agree with you and will organize with you. Any power Scrabman thinks he has is not because he's some kind of political super genius. He's powerful because he is a member of the USWP and has been in this game long enough to know a lot of people in a lot of places.
I look at the map of the eWorld and I can see, just as everyone else does, that basically every high iron region is owned by a PEACE nation. I understand how this is threatening because those occupying nations could perhaps wish to expand further and monopolize other resources. I understand that PEACE may want all of the high iron regions so they can invade, not so they can defend. I understand how a high iron region would be beneficial to the defense of the United States. We have to decide if we think it is worth it. Is the only way to successfully defend ourselves through obtaining a high iron region? Are we willing to invade another country and take the region from them? What of the people who lived there? Personally, I find it shameful that Scrabman chooses to play this game without regard for morals and ethics. He believes them to be a hinderance to smart game playing and good politics. But all of these questions about how the game should be played involve moral and ethical elements, to some degree. Completely ignoring those questions doesn't work toward the end of 'making things better than they are in real life.' It reflects one of the biggest problems our real life country has been dealing with. Just because you CAN do something, does it mean you should?
Mock:
All political opponents.
"The most likely target of the PEACE Party PTO is The Federalist Party, the number 6 ranked Political Party in the USA (and clearly one of the most partisan). This comes to me from my top advisers who have seen their numbers start to climb in the last several days due to PEACE members joining. This move makes sense on several levels because The Federalists, much like PEACE, have trolled me and my Administration since day one and are, realistically, anarchists masquerading as conservatives. While the idea of one group of butthole hater trolls taking over another group of butthole hater trolls is amusing to me ... we have to respond to this threat when it comes time for Party President Elections on Monday."
Scrabman and his political buddies are normally pretty passive-aggressive, but every now and then Scrab gets pretty full of himself and lashes out. They've been implying that The Federalists are working for PEACE or are at the very least PEACE sympathizers because we disagree with Scrabman's authoritarian agenda. He's blatantly said that his goal was to marginalize and mock us into irrelevance, but the opposite happened. His attacks on the Federalists were so transparent, Scrabman was actually a contender for Fed Recruiter of the Month. This boost in membership served us well in time for Congressional elections and has really revitalized our party. These aren't people who support PEACE. These are people who oppose Scrabman. I know his ego won't allow him to see a difference, but surely you can.
This incredibly suspicious climb in membership over the last few days is a whopping 10 people. The AAP has grown by nearly 100 members in the last couple of days, but I'm sure that's perfectly legit. The Federalists picking up 10 members needs a full scale investigation. By the way, we are down 6 butthole hater trolls right now as some of our members travel overseas on behalf of the eUS military. How unamerican of us.
Disrupt:
Democracy.
"The simplest thing to do would be to ask all of the USA Federalists to leave the party. However, I can assure you that they won't as they will either think it's a leftist trick or they would simply want to see the nation hurt so they can point fingers and say "see ... we told you scrabman is evil"."
Considering there is exactly ZERO evidence to support the claim that PEACE has infiltrated the Federalist Party, this request is completely ridiculous. Even if his claims were true, having the eAmericans abandon the Federalists to allow a PEACE takeover is a pretty shitty strategy, in my opinion.
If you want to talk about most likely party to be infiltrated by PEACE (an extremely divisive conversation the President really shouldn't have started), why not look to the biggest party in the eWorld? If the goal is to get Congressional seats, the USWP is hands down the best choice. They run people in every state and most Top 5 party members vote along party lines. If someone is moving over here to get a Congressional seat, they don't need to bring many people with them to win. The USWP provides most of the support without even trying.
If the goal is to overtake a political party, why go with #6? Why not something smaller? And why would the Federalists be selected for takeover when we have one of the most active populations? We have fewer 'zombie' members and two-clickers than most other parties, relative to size. Considering Gaius already announced BillBrasky as his successor and the majority of our active party is on board with that decision, PEACE would have to move A LOT of people to take over the Federalists. It wouldn't be worth it.
But this isn't a conversation we should really be having. We're arguing about symptoms and ignoring the larger problem. Scrabman's campaign for ethics-free game playing only supports the practice of takeovers. He's worked hard to make it socially acceptable and somewhat commonplace to move to another country and participate in their elections. In an attempt to rally support for his personal agenda, he's validated every shady PEACE tactic that has made this game unpleasant for many people. There is no such thing as true democracy in this game if we move to other countries to vote and they vote here. This practice should not have the eUS seal of approval.
And yet, it does. Not only are we supportive of moving to other countries to influence their elections (while obviously leaving ourselves vulnerable to the same thing), the USWP and others are trying to disenfranchise opposing parties to consolidate power. I'm all for advancing the eUS in this game. This is my country and I actually do want it to be better than it is in real life. From where I'm sitting, however, that means actually being better and doing better. The real world has no shortage of unethical narcissists that wish to take over the world, and an authoritarian, imperialistic government is NOT better than what we have in real life.
Don't let Scrabman win his game at the expense of ours.
Comments
Excellent! Voted!
I think you just proved many of Scrab's points...
Give it up Fingerguns, you Feds ruin the game.
Voted, already subscribed.
tl:dr
I don't agree with everything scrabs does, but he certainly has the Feddie drones pegged.
I agree 100% on how stupid the tactic of PTOs are (that is to say, having people move into a country for the express purpose of voting to influence their elections and then moving right back out). If a country (or a faction) has so many people that it can effectively take over a country by having members move to that country and vote, then why don't they just invade and take over cleanly?
I strongly believe that PTOs need to become a thing of the past, or at least uncommon enough that they aren't useful as a "valid political tactic". As they stand, they're nothing more than an exploit of the game mechanics, and aren't far off from the gold or citizen exploits that I've heard about (save only that they can be done "within the rules" rather than being an explicit breach of them).
Using PTOs in this manner to "win" a game like this (or even get an advantage in it) is like "winning" a game of chess by stealing the opposing player's pieces off the board when they aren't looking. In other words, it's not really winning at all. For that matter, any real advantage gained by doing so is negated by the fact that both sides do it.
As far as I'm concerned, the simplest way to end this would be to disallow anyone who moves out of a country for any reason from being eligible to vote in any election in the entire world until a month had passed of them living in a single country. I'm sure there will be any number of people who will excoriate this as being worse than the actual problem, but the simple fact is that PTOs have become so commonplace and so accepted that extreme measures would be needed to end them as the kind of commonplace tactic they are used as now.
Besides, this won't actually prevent people from performing a PTO if they really want to; it will just change it from a short-term tactic to a long-term one. People will have to think long and hard about whether they really want to live in another country for a month to gain the right to vote there.
Pegged as 'butthole hater trolls'?
And what you guys are doing right now is what, exactly?
I'll disagree with a few points, mostly those characterizing PEACE as evil incarnate, but overall the article was beautiful, just beautiful.
This whole poisonous political backbiting is just what PEACE wants. Of course, it is true what Lord Acton said "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Scabman does have more power than any other president in eUS history, so......Now, that being said, what is lost in these back and forth diatribes is reason. Look, the creation of say the eUSaF is a good thing. We have more than enough population to spare to stop a PTO of eSpain say. Now you can see conspiracies if you want, but what I see is people on both sides having differences, but turning the other guy into ENEMY instead of just opponent. Now, isn't that what these jokers do in RL, so much for this being a better world.
FINGERGUNS IS OBVIOUSLY A TROLL BECAUSE ANYBODY WHO WRITES INTELLIGENT WELL THOUGHT OUT ARTICLES IN CRITICISM TO SCRABMAN IS A TROLL.
Wow that was beautiful, both in form and function.
Dude that was the most amazing display I've ever seen of taking someone's words, reading between the lines and putting word's in their mouth. I am in awe - truly your skills are remarkable.
Wonderful article. Voted.
I love this article.
Scrabman overstepped the line of professionalism with his article. Voted + subbed.
Read, voted, applauded, and subscribed.
"Don't let Scrabman win his game at the expense of ours."
He's already played his hand at the expense of Germany and Latvia, vhy not expect it to be a matter of time before he sells the rest of us out as vell?
I like this article. Voted.
Excellent article. Voted and Subscribed.
Good article. Scrabman cant take even the smallest of critisisms with out ordering in his army of USWP Drone posters to bash an article. Whats more, he goes so far as to single out a party and basically attempt to paint them as PEACE goons.
Pretty low for a president who's had to rig 2 elections to stay in office and a party so devoid of morals that they go along with the plan.
"Are we willing to invade another country and take the region from them? What of the people who lived there?"
For goodness sakes noone lives there! Its a game! PEACE is winning cause they don't care about who is in what country. They take what they need to be successful because that is what you do in a game. I don't think they do it "just because they can" and I don't think Scrab trys to get High Iron Regions "just because he can" (which if he could we would have it...we kinda failed at it) he would do it cause it would be in the best interest of the eUS as a country and would keep PEACE from getting it and would keep us more safe.
Stop trying to emasculate the eUS because people supposedly 'live' in imaginary countries on an online video game!
LOL! Fail at Relorian: "Pretty low for a president who's had to rig 2 elections to stay in office and a party so devoid of morals that they go along with the plan."
Rigged the election? What a dumbass.
And still the question remains...so what?
So what if you don't like him? So what if you disagree with him? So what if wants to do what he wants to do at any expense to the citizens of this country? So what?
While I like the article, there's dozens of articles out there pointing fingers at scrabman. Have they changed the situation? Nope. Not one little bit. Now, I'm not saying to quit writing, but at some point a few like minds are going to actually have to work together and DO something about it.
These fed's just need to learn to shut up, Even though i don't agree with most things scrab does. He was the best person running for president and he shows he is very smart and has fun playing the game. Feds are all just primadonnas
Yes and pointing fingers of blame back at one of the smaller political parties just because they don't agree with the president is just so constructive as well? The symptoms of the eUS's problems don't seem to stem from a few dissenters, but a total hypocrisy in some deeds and double standards in others. A word of advice. You attract more flies with honey than with vinegar. So, in theory, a few words of gratitude for winning a close election, tactically speaking, might not have been a bad idea. As for this article, I'll vote it and subscribe it, simply because I'd rather listen to a free thinker than a closeminded group of drones. It's about enough to make me uproot and move to Peru.
About time fingerguns writes something great.
Excellent article, FG. Voted. Subscribed the day I met you.
The usual trolls are out in force.
"Disband the Federalists"? - ah - the true sentiments of those who fear democracy.
I see Tormod (aka: Trollmaxxx) got to this one quickly, he certainly is efficient!
Voted FG, nice article.
fingerguns, I'm far too new to know all the history here, but your logic is all over the place.
At the end of your article first you argue that they should infiltrate the largest party since that one has more influence (even though PEACE would then in theory have proportionally less...), then that they would really go for something smaller that the #6 Federalists, where they would have more proportional influence.
Which is it?
Perhaps neither.
I'm not defending the policies of any particular style of play, and I did read the scrabman article. But most of it is still beyond me at this point.
You're article's good, but you need to be clearer and more consistent. And it does seem to me that there ought to be a bit of a 'citizenship evaluation period' for people changing countries.
Karolingus: I'm glad to see you getting involved in eRep so quickly. It takes most people weeks to work up the nerve to leave comments and things.
Anyway, I said it would make sense for PEACE to infiltrate the USWP if they're looking for Congressional seats. But it would make more sense to invade a smaller party if they're simply looking to be in control of a party. I can't see any reason why they would target The Federalists, considering we're too small to break into the Top 5 any time soon, but too big to be easily steamrolled. Controlling a non top 5 party wouldn't be too beneficial to them considering all Congressmen have to run under a top 5 party's banner.
Anyway, none of it makes any sense. Scrabman didn't present any evidence or even a good argument for why The Feds would be the target of a PTO. He based that whole rant against the party off of intelligence that WE gave HIM. We told him someone had made a threat, unsure of how serious it was. Scrabman decided that makes The Federalists evil, and somehow in on it. Really, he just saw an opportunity to go after us. He's not out for the best interests of the eUS...he's out to eliminate or silence his political opposition by dreaming up conspiracies.
That is a great article. Good job.
Hey fingerguns, I'm sorry for posting all that propaganda on my article. I didn't realize it was just a bunch of crap. Nice article
"These fed's just need to learn to shut up"
@Ryan: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ad3Hzsy1-20&feature=related&pos=5" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ad3Hzsy1-[..]pos=5
"His attacks on the Federalists were so transparent, Scrabman was actually a contender for Fed Recruiter of the Month."
Yep!
"They run people in every state and most Top 5 party members vote along party lines"
Precisely, when I first started and didn't have the time to check people's stance on issues, I just voted depending on their party.
(I am now in the USaF, so it really doesn't matter if I look them up or not)[By the way, I support PTO's only for the purpose of keeping enemy voters at home]
You little trolls. How dare you say something against The Scrabman King III?
He is my hero and I will do anything he says. I will bring him a cup of coffee, give him a massage on the back like some congressmen do.
I will go and take over a country even it is unethical. I will give him free Q5 weapons and some gold when he visits White House.
So, yeah. Stop hating on him. We should be proud of ourselves and act like zombies and do what our King tell us to do.
Hey Pig,
Could you pull your head out of Scrab long enough to read an article before you comment please??
Your same old the USWP is the best, everyone else is lying bit is getting quite old!
Yes I am a pig and I like licking my King's butt. I think everyone should do the same.
All hail American King Scrabman III. Let's all make USA a better dictatorship!!!
I second that
well done. the USWP obviously now has a better propaganda machine then PEACE. No matter how much I try to like those guys(USWP), they keep trying to stop me.
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/the-american-problem-827720/1/20" target="_blank">http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/the-[..]/1/20 Let's take the high road guys.
Wtf? This article is like... wow.
I'm not sure which direction is up anymore.
If I could address one of fingerguns' concerns directly...
Don't worry, we're taking every precaution possible to prevent PEACE spies from running for Congress under our banner. They'd probably have to hijack the PP slot on the 15th in order to PTO the USWP, because we'll be plugging all of the Congressional holes with blockers and such as needed.
Voted that. Unlike some here, I read the entire thing top to bottom, without skimming. At first (when reading the title) I thought this was PEACE propaganda.
Voted.
I voted. Hard. This is exactly what was needed to be done, and this is exactly true. Notice how the USWP can't make a good counter argument for 45 comments.
I refuse to vote for an article like this, just as I didnt vote for Scrabman's article in the same tone. This political swordfight about who is FTW and who is troll fail is ridiculous.
Read Woxan's article http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/the-american-problem-827720/1/all" target="_blank">http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/the-[..]/all
Wake up, when you read party platforms they are all basically the same - little differences here and there, but much of the disaggreement comes from personal attacks against one another. That's what you get when 12 year olds run the country.
He has rigged 2 elections? You guys voted for him
voted
Voted. Subscribed.
Brilliant.