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This is a continuation to my response to Joe Newton's response to CivilAnarchy's article on the eUSA's imperialist history and how it almost led to our downfall. This article focuses on the general claims made by supporters of in game imperialism but specifically on the second part of Joe's article where he makes classy reiterations of all the pros being thrown around now-a-days.

Now, after his questionable statements on history, good old Joe goes on to argue that having ones country conquered actually builds resolve and brings in babies thus helping the country and making the game funner for everyone. There are, in fact, many people trying to make the claim that having your country removed from the map is actually beneficial. First problem, if you are trying to keep your enemy from gaining power then why would you conquer them and use the previous argument as justification? That seems absurdly hypocritical. Why not simply let them keep conquering us so that we can keep getting more and more powerful? Doesn't make as much sense when you think about it like that does it?

Secondly there is the matter of proving this. The claim is that, since the US was almost wiped out it galvanized us into a unified entity and made us more powerful but the US was never completely wiped out nor did it even stay at only one state for very long at all. Neither did Spain stay completely wiped out for very long at all. These quick falls and quicker returns yes do help build a common cause to fight for. However prolonged conquest and complete annihilation have historically not proven beneficial for anyone.

Let's look at South Africa and India. Both have been conquered and region swapped numerous times yet where is their baby boom? Now that they have territories again they are making gains yes but prior to that it was only a handful of dedicated people working for their freedom and they are far from a baby boom.

Let's look at North Korea , Norway, or Switzerland who sacrificed themselves to block for the US in the beginning of WW3. North Korea is still mostly conquered and neither they nor Switzerland or Norway are experiencing a baby boom. Or what about countries like Austria, Denmark, or Slovakia who have been conquered over the years as well? Do you see any powerhouse forming in either of these countries? Perhaps Mexico or Peru or Bolivia or Venezuela? Nope nothing there either.

Now Poland is witnessing an immense baby boom yet they haven't been conquered in recent history. How do you explain that? Or the fact that Indonesia has been a powerhouse forever yet have not had any attacks on their home territory in how long? Only the US and Hungary have benefited from conquest to my knowledge. Even Russia didn't gain in the ranks until well after their liberation.

The only thing beneficial from being conquered is gaining favor from the opposing camp of those who conquered you. The countries who experience baby booms are those who make great efforts to spread the word of the game around to friends and communities in their country. It seems someone running for PotUS should know these things. But perhaps I have too high standards.

Mr. Newton also makes that faulty claim for "justice" in response to invading eMexico or the eUK or eColumbia. Now the pro-imperialism side of this continuous debate wants to claim that real world morality plays no part in this game. But then wouldn't claiming "justice" as a casus beli be as equally ludicrous as anti-imperialists using the real world effects of imperialism to argue against it?

And another thing, nobody has or probably ever will study the entire history of this e-world enough to attempt to determine once and for all who is simply getting revenge and who is the one continually perpetuating imperialistic aims, so once and for all I would like to put an end to anyone, anywhere, trying to say that one side or the other is “justified” in war, because none of you know and none of you likely ever will, including me. So please let us all quit with this silly and horribly fictitious call for "justice" or some similar nonsense. Say you want war because you think it is fun and be done with it, please. In fact most people already are starting to do this, and, contrary to the usual ignorance of the mainstream voice, this is actually a logical stance compared to calling for war in the name of “justice”.

Grand Moff Newton then claims 1/2 of the players in this game play simply for the war side and not the political (yet he's running for PotUS???), leaving out of course any sources for this claim and the fact that there is also an economic and a journalist side to this game, something he should know being the writer of an article and all, not to mention the overall social interaction aspect. Now what Joseph says is not entirely false. I would say almost every player enjoys having a war module, if for no other reason than the experience gain. However to make claims that the MAIN reason to play this game for the majority of players is the flawed war module seems a bit ridiculous to me especially given his lack of sources.

Bullwhip Joe then closes with that much overused and even more under thought claim to "winning" the game. The problem with that is, while there are debates about the theoretical ways to achieve victory in the game, very few people actually have seen those pieces (and even fewer understand them) and thus it is generally understood in a realistic sense that this game is not winnable even to those who formulate theoretical victory conditions.

Finally, I would like to make my statement about in game imperialism. Having a few useless regions conquered does give the country a national objective to achieve. If this were all that was going on then that would be no problem. The problem is when countries are completely wiped out or are stripped of any valuable regions and left with one or two worthless ones. If they can not immediately make progress in gaining their valuable territory back then they LOSE players especially new ones who have no chance to develop the vital social connections to people of their own language to help introduce them into the game and give them a reason to stay. Then those dedicated few who do stay are left at such a severe disadvantage trying to liberate their country of scattered people that the game becomes a chore instead of a means of relaxation.

My argument isn't based around e-morality but real life morality. Ruining a recreational activity for someone when it isn't the point of the game (for example: in Call of Duty the point is actually to kill the person and inhibit them in any way possible and yet it remains fun for both parties, although there is an argument for sportsmanship there too, but that needs a different topic on a different website) is immoral in real life because you are causing direct grief for that person in something they turned to to alleviate the grief that life in general already gave them.

There are ways to play the game and have war without imperialism. As a matter of fact we did it all the time before the US was conquered. They were called war games and some creative people that I've long forgotten even proposed ways of making those war games into more of a contest instead of simply an experience boost. This should be the job of national leaders, thinking up ways to keep their citizens interested without the need to cause grief for other people.