In Response to Wilker Nath's Request

Day 4,548, 08:41 • Published in USA USA • by PigInZen
Hi America.

I haven't written a serious commentary article in years. There seems to be no point. Sometimes, however, there is a point. This is one of those times.

This article will address an existential question: how should we, citizens of the eUSA and their representatives in Congress, address citizenship, citizenship approvals, and what process should we use. I will discuss WHY this is critically important and this will get a bit political. It has to, for the sake of the long-term success of the eUSA.

Why I'm Writing
Wilker Nath kindly asked me to get more active again in response to a comment I left to his recent article. I was in the process of writing a lengthy reply to that when I decided that instead of a 4k+ word comment that would be seen by maybe four people that I would instead put it in an article.

A Question
What else would you have me do to be active? I work, fight daily. Follow MU orders. I always vote. I employ other players in my companies, sell product, sometimes buy packs. Occasionally I'm PP of the small 6th party, the E Pluribus Unum Party. I try to provide a reliable, consistent medium in the form of a forum so that players can collaborate and find success. I engage in communication in-game, and rarely on Discord or at the forums. What else do you expect? Seriously, I'm curious as I expect the answer will be telling. As always, be careful for which you ask, for you may not like what the answer is.

Communications and Policy Impact
As much as I would love to be publishing multiple articles a week, it's not going to happen. I imagine this is true for the majority of committed players as well. Newspaper articles used to be the only medium for communication in eRep. There was no national feed, no shout channels. Now there are far too many methods for communication and yet, nothing seems to matter, nothing seems to change, no matter how much an individual player might care.

One thing hasn't changed, though, over the 10+ years I have been playing eRepublic: players in the eUSA cannot agree on the best medium/media for communication. It used to be that we had newspapers in-game, IRC, and the forums. Now we have Discord, Telegram, IRC, text messages, newspaper articles, the national shout feed, a friends feed, party feeds, and an MU feed. There were complaints from some that they shouldn't have to resort to IRC or register for a forum to play a browser game. Now there are arguments over what form of media we should use, be it done via Telegram or Discord, this forum or that forum.

Political Browser Game is Rife with Politics
Honestly, I grew tired of the bullshit populism that passes for politics in the eUSA years ago. I know that the political void must be filled somehow, some way, every month. It's sisyphean, this treadmill cycle of ever-repeating elections. Without some form of difference between candidates what's the point of the election? Another good question.

Here's the answer: some people just want political power for the sake of having it and for feeding their online ego. And they apparently will do anything to accomplish this, including granting citizenship in exchange for political support or votes. It's as old as this game itself, I've witnessed dozens of attempts, some blatant, some slow motion. Old memories have been jostled loose by some recent purging of multis on the eUSA forum. Old memories of suspicions that have only just now been confirmed by discovery of just how many attempts there have been. Attempts that have been plainly illustrated by IP address, logged over many, many years at the forum.

But I digress. Let me get to the heart of the topic:

Because of politics, instead of developing sane, rational policy we see certain people leverage hot-button non-issues like IES. Seriously, IES is not a problem. Being PTOed is a HUGE problem. Running a tight IES program resolves that. End of story. So why is this an issue, again. Why, now? Why is Rainy Sunday's loyalty and commitment an issue? There's a long history with Rainy, many, many years of her participation and continued work, both in-game and at the forum. Yet now her intentions and loyalty is in question. Again, why? To what end? Those are the questions that need answering, in my opinion.

I cannot answer them, at least, not directly. My conclusion is that this is political, with the goal of increasing political power for one faction over another.

MMO Browser Game Leverages the Aggregate
I have always said that eRep isn't a simple browser game. Sure, the game mechanics and stuff you can do in-game are limited, but the ramifications of what individuals choose to do in-game and in aggregate are potentially huge. Any of you that have taken an introductory course in Economics will recognize this. Aggregate action (or the lack thereof!) is the driver of eRepublik success or failure. This is true in every component of the game. The victors are those nations who can inflict more damage, earn more votes, wield more stuff (weapons & food)... More participation... You get the point.

In this end, for those of you who remember, as I do, the point of the majority of my old articles - that we're all in this together! Sadly, however, because of politics and personal, not national goals, we're forced to spend cycles on debates that serve no national purpose.

TL; DR, Here's the Conclusion
From my perspective having players not invested in the long-term success of the eUSA gain citizenship results in a net loss for those of us who have literally spent YEARS and RL MONEY trying to maintain what we have. I have studiously avoided labeling any one party or specific players in this article, for good reason. The point is that we need our national policy to reflect the national good.

Weakening IES or injecting party politics into the IES process will not help achieve the national good. IES is not broken. Those arguing that it is have other reasons for doing so.

We only win when we work together, for common goals. Kinda like the Wonder Pets: