Welcome to the tenth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed here. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

This month’s banter leans a little, OK a lot, on the academic side. It comes to us from xiphos83 of A Misguided Adventurer, who asks the following: ” Victor Davis Hanson argues that western culture, comprising of ideals such as freedom, debate, capitalism, and consensual government, are what make western society so successful at waging war. These ideologies create a warrior who’s direct participation in government, ability to think freely, and desire to remain free, fights harder and is willing to suffer more than his conscripted foe. Though a military must remain a structured oligarchy to fight a war effectively, why in a world where military conflict is as familiar as breathing are there so few alliances that embrace these ideologies when governing their members?”

Wow! What a topic! It took a bit of thought to even decipher it but I think I’ve got an interpretation I can work with: The question Xiphos asks can be basically boiled down to this: “In a virtual world where practically any form of government is available to corporations and alliances, where are the democracies?”

Whilst I have been unable to find data regarding the political structures used by player corporations and alliances (maybe a project for the future) the original question posed by this banter assumes that most are run in a dictatorial style, or with a few key personnel making the major decisions. I’m not going to address the question of whether this is the case or not, but instead will assume that this is the prevailing state of affairs and proceed from there.

The universe of EVE is basically based on conflict, it is built on it. Be it military, economic, or psychological, New Eden depends on conflict and competition to make it the vibrant and dynamic universe that it is. This being the case, a more dictatorial or militaristic style of organisation is generally more efficient at meeting the challenges that such conflict inevitably throws up. When your success or failure in any endeavour is dependent on many different facets of your organisation working in concert being sure that any orders given are followed is essential.

Whilst some corporations and alliances are more relaxed in their attitude to such things, many of the more successful groups have rigid power structures with fixed chains of command.  This highly regimented style of leadership is extremely efficient and has the benefit of every member of an alliance/corporation knowing their role and their place in the hierarchy. Whilst votes may be taken on major policy changes, many day to day decisions (including tactical and strategic military decisions) are necessarily made by a select few.

If a vote had to be taken by all members of an organisation about every little detail of the organisations actions, nothing would ever get done, fractures would develop and in the case of sensitive military and economic decisions details of what the organisation was planning could easily be revealed to the competition. So for efficiency and security reasons a dictatorial or limited representational style (decisions made by vote among a small elected committee/board of directors) lends itself better to the state of eternal conflict which exists in New Eden.

That being said, it is not the case that there is no such thing as democracy in New Eden. In practice there are so many corporations and (albeit fewer) alliances existing in the game that a player can often easily find one whose goals mesh quite well with their own. If after having joined one of these they find that their goals have changed, or that they didn’t coincide with the organistation’s as closely as they thought they can always vote with their feet, and go hunting for another corp whose goals more closely match their own. So democracy does have a place in New Eden, if we consider joining a corporation to be equivalent to supporting a political party.

So on a wider scale New Eden is ultimately highly democratic, with players showing their support for certain goals and endeavours through joining the corporations or alliances which they more closely associate their own politics/goals with. Conversely at the level of the actual corporations and alliances a more militaristic/dictatorial style of government is adopted because that is the form of government which actually gets things done.

CrazyKinux has set up a new way of collating the contributions of banterers for this edition, instead of a list at the end of the post he will supply us with a link to delicious page for each month’s banter and here it is

Till next time good hunting and don’t let the reds get you down.

Must read for any brit concerned about the state of our politics. Take heart in the fact that there are people like Guido out there. The most telling question that he, and others like him ask is:

“Are these the people we want running our lives?”

The correct answer is: No, not these an not any others either. We are rational, thinking, and free entities and as such should be running our own lives and affairs. Even if we were to choose completely virtuous and benevolent beings to rule over us, it would still be  a ruler too many.

The next one will be an EVE post, promise

Jacqui Smith is the UK’s home secretary. She has recently been caught out fiddling her expenses. Not once, but twice.

The first time she was claiming her sisters house in London as a second residence, simply because she occupied a room in it on those occasions when she needed a place to crash whilst in the city. After all the recent hoo haa over MP’s expenses this seemed to be stretching the rules somewhat and makes the minister in charge of the police and law enforcement look a bit of a hypocrite.

The second, and much more damaging IMO, incident was the fact that her husband had watched some porn on pay-per-view and charged it to her ministerial expenses. This takes the cake. Especially as she’s been known to campaign against lap-dancing clubs. She needs to be gone and gone now.

Not only has she presided over some of the most draconian bills to come out of the home office, she’s guilty of abusing her position and spending my money in ways which I deem unacceptable for an MP.

Get rid of her. Now.

(TBH I believe that every MP should be out of a job and our government is a corrupt and snivelling entity who doesn’t dare to lead effectively because thay care more about the opinion of a populace who they have deliberatley kept ignorant of political issues than they do about decisive and effective leadership. Get rid of them all, but especially Jacquboot Smite.)

This speech, given to the think tank Conservative Future by the Director of the Libertarian Alliance, Sean Gabb, has many good ideas but unfortunately is either ignorant of, or in denial regarding the impossibility of these ideas being put into practice.

The meaning of this is that you should not try to work with the Establishment. You should not try to jolly it along. You should not try fighting it on narrow fronts. You must regard it as the enemy, and you must smash it.

Yes, smash it. Destroy it utterly. Take it apart and burn the peices. This cannot be done if you use the current system to get to a position where you can do these things. You can only do this from a position of strength and morality, once you participate it has already corrupted you and so its must be done without resorting to politics as we know it.

The system, as it is now, is based on mutual back-scratching, exchanges of influence and favours, and garnering support in return for concessions. These need to be bypassed, avoided and left unused if there is to be any hope of achieving their removal from our political life.

A tree cannot be persuaded to fall with kind words and promises, sometimes the only tool that will do is an axe.

The speech itself is enlightening but more so are the comments afterwards. Mr Gabb knew that this would be a hostile audience and was prepared for disagreement. I am surprised however that he did not see that the comments afterwards demonstrate the utter hoplessness of trying to use the system to bring about its own downfall. Those touched by the hand of politics, as it stands now, are forever lost, corrupted and indoctrinated into a world where entitlement and parasitism are not only accepted but actively encouraged.

They say that it is always darkest just before dawn. I can only hope that dawn comes soon lest we become blinded by the darkness.

This needs to be said. This needs to be heard. If I were invited to speak at the House of Lords, this is the speech I would give.

I’m beginning to find the behaviour of LBC, Barnett and others quite despicable and would urge anyone who advertises with LBC to withdraw their custom until Jeni Barnett is given the sack. This woman has no right to call herself a journalist and LBC should display some integrity by giving air to those rational views which counter her moobattery.

It is Ms. Barnett and those who espouse her deranged pseudo-scientific views who should be held directly responsible for the current upsurge in cases of measles and the disablities and deaths that are the result.

Shame on you LBC, and shame on you Ms. Barnett.

So a blogger hears a radio show which scares him with the ignorance and superstition that it spouts, because its basically telling people not to give their kids the MMR (Measles, Mumps and Rubella) vaccine. Looks at the figures for measles cases going through the roof because people are actually believing the ignorance and superstition, realises that children are dying and being disabled by measles at a higher rate since the MMR scare (google it) started 10 years ago and decides to give the segment of the broadcast a good fisking, whilst also criticising the media who give the broadcaster airtime to spread these fatal falsehoods.

To do so he posts the 44 minute audio of the triade on his blog to demonstrate the level of ignorance and idiocy seemingly worn as a badge of honour by one Jeni Barnett. End Result the radio station (LBC) sends in the legal bully boys and threatens action if he does not remove the audio clip from his site. He then blogs about this. I get a tweet from @stephenfry (not directed at me but to all his followers and the rest of the twittersphere) making me aware of the situation and I post this.

Heres what I’d like my readers (few though you are, love to you all ) to do:

1. Read the article linked to above.
2. Post about this on your blogs. Link to Bad Science and not to me.
3. Get the audio from wikileaks (listen to it, its enlightening) and spread it around by whatever means you can.
4. Torrent of the audio is available here and here for those of you familiar with P2P filesharing. I’ll be seeding this for a long time but only between the hours of midnight and 8am (bloody ISP restrictions )

What is happening in Isreal/Palestine, and what has been happening for what seems like forever, is an obscenity. It is an affront to rational thinking human beings that it can be allowed to continue. It makes me so angry that the people involved seem to want to perpetuate it. The following is a list of failings, crimes and idiotic behaviour which have not helped the situation in any way whatsoever:

• Hamas are allowed to rule with impunity in Gaza simply because they were ‘democratically’ elected. This is the worst failing of both the international community and the Gazan people themselves. The international community for giving tacit recognition to a hostile terrorist organization claiming to be a government and the Gazans for not standing up to Hamas and saying “No-more”.

• Isreal hasn’t had the guts to put an end to it once and for all, though I am of the opinion that one day their patience will run out and Gaza will be reduced to a very slowly cooling sheet of glass. Their compassion, as much as Hamas’ intransigent islamic moobattery, is to blame for the mess that the Palestine problem has become.

• That no-one in the rest of the world can see Hamas for the islamofascist terrorists that they are and only see the self-inflicted suffering of the people of Gaza. We are moved by pictures of dead children, not to put an end to the situation but to hand over our cash to Hamas. Any aid which makes its way to Gaza is only going to fill the ‘government’s’ coffers so that they can buy more weapons and start the whole dance over again.

I’d like to throw my full support behind the BBC and Sky news in their refusal to air an appeal for aid for Gaza. I praise their integrity, its just such a shame that they cannot be honest about their reasons for denying the Hamas sympathizers air time.  I believe that someone in the Beeb (possibly influenced by unseen footage captured by their reporters) has come to the conclusion that any aid will go straight to Hamas and that Hamas is an enemy of civilization. In a time of war (which we are constantly being told we are in) it is the act of a traitor to give aid and succour to the enemy. I don’t believe that their decision has anything to do with impartiality as they claim. Their loyalty and steadfast upholding of the values of western civilization in this matter (if their motives are infact what I believe them to be) are to be praised and celebrated, not matter how much I might disagree with them on other matters.

As I see it now there is only one outcome to Hamas’ continued hostility towards Isreal and its not good for either party (though at least Isreal will still be there when its over). Unless the Gazan people overthrow their own government (possibly with the help of Fatah, who may be incompetent and corrupt but at least they aren’t as murderous and insane) or the international community does something to help Isreal oust Hamas (Hah, fat chance!) in order to hand Gaza back to the Palestinian Authority (currently in control of the West Bank, where things are apperntly much nicer), the only outcome I see is one that involves more death, more destruction and less compassion from Isreal.

A strong message is needed from the international community that Hamas is persona non grata. All that needs to happen is for us to look the other way whilst the Isreali’s deal with it and the problem, whilst far from being solved, will be of a different nature. Once Isreal shows that they are not to be trifled with it may cause a rethink from groups of islamicists in the region. Iran may have second thoughts about pointing a nuke in Israel’s direction, the Saudis may come to the conclusion that its harder to drill for oil through radioactive glass, and the Syrians, well who knows what the Syrians are thinking, I doubt even the Syrians do.

I hope it doesn’t come to it, but becoming devoid of all human life may be Gaza’s only hope for peace.

Note: All comments on this post (apart from the obvious spam) will be published, even the ones that are threatening and full of hate and bile. I can track your IP and any threats of violence will be reported, such behaviour will also do the job of undermining your own argument and making my point for me. Do yourself a favour and have a think before you post.

I’m not talking about freedom of speech, or freedom of religion, or any of the more abstract freedoms which we are told we should care about. I’m talking about economic freedom.

According to this article in the Times:

PARTS of the United Kingdom have become so heavily dependent on government spending that the private sector is generating less than a third of the regional economy

The state is becoming the economy, and Britain is becoming a communist state by stealth.<em>Update:</em>A discussion has developed on twitter regarding whether we are becoming a Fascist or Communist State. Personally it I don’t think it makes alot of difference, the result will be the same. If anything we are become more of a hybrid than fully one or the other. Lets take a look at the characteristics of our situation and see where we stand:

• The state makes up a large part of the economy = Communism.
• Citizens encouraged to use credit = Fascism.
• State owned sources of above credit = Communism.
• Criticism of state behaviour discouraged, either covertly or overtly = Both.
• Constant war footing (Iraq, Afghanistan, Terror) = Fascism.
• Means of production left in private hands but heavily regulated by the state = Fascism.
• Gov’t policies based on Socialist ideals = Communism.
• Heavy use of propaganda and control of the media = Both.
• Disdain for democratic processes and overt or covert manipulation of the same = Fascism.

End result: A hybrid Fascist/Communist system which is just as totalitarian as one or the other.

Something which should be clarified is that I’m not talking about the utopian fantasy that is true communism but the more insidious version that  is all that can exist when you add human nature to the equation. Neither am I talking about the overt Fascism which was seen in Nazi Germany or Italy under Mussolini, though I don’t believe it will be long before the state will be able to parade its motives and true nature publicly.

If the crisis we are going through deepens, as I think it will, the citizenry will accept any kind of abhorrent governance if it promises to lift them from this recession. Then we’re really fucked.