Compromise and Community

Day 2,403, 17:00 • Published in United Kingdom United Kingdom • by Butjam

Good evening ladies and gents, this is your Queen with a lovely bit of self-indulgent self-promotion to remind you all of how lovely I am and to make you all vote how I’m going to be voting and to make us all rediscover our sense of community. I debated calling this article “Compromise and Unity”, but I did want to dodge the post-modern fashion show connotations of this thing...


Talon was shocked at how poorly the new designs, “Unity, by Keers” went down

Though the title has changed and is a compromise (see what I did there?) the message remains the same as it has been for a long time: The eUK is a team. Obligatory football joke about how we need to be better than the English team. Obligatory follow up joke apologising to the eScottish, eWelsh and eNorthernIrish with a shocking twist that shows I wasn’t apologising for lumping them with England, but because they have even worse teams. I am such a cad. Anyway, yes, the eUK seems to be very good at forgetting that at the end of the day our success relies very much on being able to work together. I mentioned on MaryamQ’s article, the big problem we have with false dichotomy around here, and I’m about to swell my head tenfold by quoting myself:

False dichotomy is the biggest problem in the eUK, somewhere along the line it feels like we've either allowed ourselves to simply see every situation as binary or, just as bad, we've allowed people who believe/use them to become the vocal minority. Maybe it's a mixture of both, or none, but we see it all the time.

"ARE YOU TUP OR VENDETTA? ARE YOU PTO OR ATO?" Is obviously the big one we've seen dominate us for ages but it's not the only one. "ARE YOU SERBIA OR POLAND?" is a common one, as we cannot be cordial with one without being full of hatred for the other. As I said on the forums, it's perfectly feasible to remain friendly with a country whilst recognising that we have different aims and goals.

Speaking of the forums, we also find "FORUMS ARE THE WORST, THEY ARE THE NEST OF THE ELITE, FULL OF BIAS AND HATRED FOR US!" or "FORUMS ARE THE ONLY WAY TO COMMUNICATE PROPERLY, WE HAVE TO USE FORUMS BECAUSE THEY ARE THE BEST". I don't think either of those are true, obviously, but I know that even I'm guilty of hopping on with the bandwagon for the latter sometimes. Hopefully people will come to their senses soon and accept that, as a team and a country, the best option is to find the right compromises between all of these.-Butjam


Artist’s representation of my swollen ego

I could bang on about all three of those points until the cows came home but you don’t need to listen to that at the moment, it’s not important. What is important is that we recognise the changing face of the UK and try to avoid our past mistakes. Propagating the split between us all isn’t healthy and more than any wipes, any lost bonuses, any alliance fallouts, will kill our community. Professor Moriarty made an excellent point in his recent interview with Sir Roman...

Well, the game itself means nothing. The community means something. It is the community why many players are still here, not the game. And because of the community, then we have to have a Government. A Government is less part of the game, more part of the Community.-Prof. J Moriarty

...and we’d do well to pay attention. Erepublik is just a game. Our players are people. We often find ourselves lashing out with venom and neglecting this sometimes, we get so drawn into a game that we forget what matters. We get so stubbornly stuck to our points that we lambast people without warrant and escalate a situation and lose all sight of the middle ground, there’s no conspiracy breeding the dichotomy, we all contribute.
Speaks for itself...

So what do I suggest? A number of things actually...

Look elsewhere politically. Maybe that’s considering a party full of excellent candidates or even just demanding your Party President runs people that aren’t older members who dominate the rankings month after month. Talk to people about something that isn’t Erepublik. Chat to BigAnt about football, ask Wayne if he’ll build you a chair, get Leo to tell you how cute his kids are, anything to break away from being tossers to each other for five minutes. Get involved with ‘The Community’ outside of elections and the battlefield by having a gander at fantasy football leagues organised on the forums or by hopping onto IRC during the footie. Be silly and love the powerless Monarchy and choose people who deserve to be recognised by being given them silly fake titles. I got to be Queen of the whole Kingdom simply by having unparalleled beauty... it’s not a fussy court!

With all of this in mind, I want to once again encourage you to look up The United Kingdom Reform Party, come join in our fun and embrace a third way. It’s not easy when you’re the oldest party around but I think we’re leading a fresh approach to encouraging compromise in eUK politics and those who join us will be welcomed with a friendly atmosphere. Speaking of compromise, I’d also like to suggest that you support Prof J. Moriarty in the July election and not just because he called me handsome. We have a big month coming up, I believe, and a Silly Spamican See-P is the only way to have enough fun to approach the future together. That said, consider this an open application from myself to any and all cabinets. I could rattle off what I’ve done, but it should be sufficient to say I scuffled through a Minister of Foreign Affairs role under BigAnt... I am prepared for whatever you could possibly throw at me.

Long live the eUK, her silly titles and her silly players, her extremely good looking Monarchy (Wills and Kate have got nothing on #TeamWolJam) and bollocks to this daft cesspit we’ve dug ourselves.

Lots of love, wet kisses and cheeky winks

Queen Butjam of the eUK (and also possibly the eCommonwealth if those pesky ‘Canadians’ settle down a bit)
xxx