Neo-Anarchism and friends: Questions about the Sixth World

Libertad · Post by **Libertad** » Wed Feb 08, 2012 11:29 pm

Stahlseele wrote:Well, actually, it seems to be a mix between the two.
Live in peace with your neighbour, contribute to the survival of your society so your society will contribute to your survival. Fuck with one, fuck with all.
No real rules other than these, outsiders are generally met with distrust and guilty until proven innocent in most cases.

The last two statements make them sound closer to collectivist anarchism.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Wed Feb 08, 2012 11:38 pm

fectin wrote:This is like complaining that Amnesty International opposes the torture of rich people. It's accurate, but only because Pareto held that taking things away from anyone is wrong. It's an equally strong condemnation of slavery, (which is taking labor from slaves).

And it's deceitful to say that Pareto efficiency doesn't end up causing exploitation if repeated enough times, because it's trivially easy to see that advantages allow you to accrue yet more advantages. There's a reason why high income mobility and high income inequality just plain do not exist in the real world.

Or in more D&D terms, imagine a game where the person who had the highest average DPR for the combat got double experience and treasure. It'd be reasonably nonexploitative for the first few games (because the last MVP could have had bad rolls this time around or faced a disadvantageous monster set) but after the 25th or so combat the same person would be more and more likely to get the double experience bonus.

fectin wrote:It's actually strongly pro-redistribution.

I'm sure the overclass would laugh right in your fucking face if you suggested that they could earn even more money if they let a portion of the wealth escape to the masses. And they're not going to laugh because they think that you're full of shit (though some will think that you are, despite the empirical and historical evidence), but because most humans would rather have a mansion surrounded by Hoovervilles than a castle surrounded by mansions.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Wed Feb 08, 2012 11:50 pm

Libertad wrote:
Stahlseele wrote:Well, actually, it seems to be a mix between the two.
Live in peace with your neighbour, contribute to the survival of your society so your society will contribute to your survival. Fuck with one, fuck with all.
No real rules other than these, outsiders are generally met with distrust and guilty until proven innocent in most cases.
The last two statements make them sound closer to collectivist anarchism.

Be that as it may, as far as i remember from reading that book, you can be left completely alone to your very own devices and only need to barter with others for supplies if you need them . . if you can get everything you need/want yourself, you can make a living as a hermit quite good in there . .
Of course, other people will want to "barter" with you for YOUR stuff then . .

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Thu Feb 09, 2012 12:29 am

I'm punching out of this arguement, both because it hijacks the original topic and because I am not interested in defending a position I have not actually advocated. Frank, I believe your terminology is off, so we are literally going to be arguing semantics, and not actually clashing. Lago, I don't even understand what you're saying.
If it's really important to either of you, we can hash it out in a new thread.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Thu Feb 09, 2012 12:40 am

That's fair. I do think that talking about the dissonance between a supposedly rational good-guy faction advocating a philosophy that does the opposite of its goals is totally relevant to the thread. But Pareto efficiency is something that should get its own thread since it's a crown jewel of libertarian economics and like most libertarian economics is full of fail.

Libertad · Post by **Libertad** » Thu Feb 09, 2012 2:36 am

16. Hope I'm not walking into a minefield here... I looked at the map in the 6th World Almanac, and there's a Palestine to the east of Israel. How did this happen? Or is it purposefully left unexplained?

17. What was Dunkelzahn's party affiliation while he was running for President?

jadagul · Post by **jadagul** » Thu Feb 09, 2012 8:40 am

Frank, you are using the word wrong. You're talking about a pareto improvement--which just means "making at least one person better off without making anyone worse off." A Pareto Efficient or Pareto Optimal situation is just one where you can't make any pareto improvements--where making anyone better off has to make someone worse off.

There are lots of not-pareto-optimal situations that are better than lots of pareto optimal situations. But for every non-pareto-optimal setup there exists at least one pareto optimal setup which is better. By definition.

That said, yeah, a situation where one dude has all the marbles is pareto optimal. Really, given a fixed set of outputs, anything is pareto optimal--the concept only matters when you can make changes that increase total output/total welfare.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Thu Feb 09, 2012 9:48 am

@16: You stepped on a Mine. The Maps are really bad and pretty wrong in many regards. This being one of them i guess.

@17: As far as i remember, no Party affiliation . . Well, maybe he'd made up his own, i am not sure about that right now . .

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Thu Feb 09, 2012 12:34 pm

Libertad wrote:16. Hope I'm not walking into a minefield here... I looked at the map in the 6th World Almanac, and there's a Palestine to the east of Israel. How did this happen? Or is it purposefully left unexplained?

That history is in Shadows of Asia. Basically, it's a three-state situation. The Palestinians got their own country, the Israelis kept their country right through the Jihad because they had nuclear weapons, and the United Nations occupies Jerusalem after everyone was forced to leave during mana warps over a couple of decades.

But the longer answer is that the maps in 6WA are fucking useless. Not only is it not compatible with Shadowrun's ridiculously convoluted history, it isn't even consistent with itself. Open it up to page 144 and look at the Czech Republic for a moment. See that part where it says "Provinces: Bohemia, Marienbad Council, Moravia"? Now look at the map: The Marienbad Council is shown as being in the fucking Allied German States! The Czech Republic of today has three provinces as well: Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia. And that is the area drawn in the map, because some jackass traced the 2011 borders instead of reading their own writeup. Mother fuckers.

And that's not even the worst one. You see Nag Kampuchea? No you don't. Because despite getting several pages in Running Wild, it's not on the map at all!

-Username17

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Thu Feb 09, 2012 12:57 pm

Bitching about the maps began as soon as we started seeing the maps. I mean, Africa is basically where they gave up and stamped "Here there be brown people." The flags (and I gave out the art direction for a bunch of the flags - there's a reason the Carib League flag is a stylized skull-and-crossbones) came out okay, except that they look like crap in the PDF.

Libertad · Post by **Libertad** » Fri Feb 10, 2012 11:56 pm

18. From what I've heard about the elven Tir nations, their governments and media outlets sound like they're composed of bigoted and xenophobic dicks. Given that there's a substantial Elven population outside these two countries, what are their attitudes towards non-Tir elves? Potential brothers in arms? Sad, barbaric elves decayed from non-elven cultural influences? How do Elves outside the Tirs view the nation's racist policies? If a non-Tir elf immigrated to the Tirs, would he be welcomed and integrated or still treated like an outsider?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Feb 11, 2012 10:28 am

Libertad wrote:18. From what I've heard about the elven Tir nations, their governments and media outlets sound like they're composed of bigoted and xenophobic dicks. Given that there's a substantial Elven population outside these two countries, what are their attitudes towards non-Tir elves? Potential brothers in arms? Sad, barbaric elves decayed from non-elven cultural influences? How do Elves outside the Tirs view the nation's racist policies? If a non-Tir elf immigrated to the Tirs, would he be welcomed and integrated or still treated like an outsider?

The Tirs do not make any sense, and never did. They came into being in 2029 (originally as a "tribe" in North America and as an anti-Protestant Irish unity movement in Ireland). Aside from a few spike babies, the oldest Elves in the world at that time were seventeen fucking years old. Yeah... the Elvish separatist movements were literally children's crusades. Making those countries some sort of Lord of the Flies experiments. I think I should point out that Elves mature slower than other metatypes, and there are some rants about how the government won't let you challenge your rank until like age 30. But when they attacked California in 2036 (or perhaps 2037, depending on the version of the timeline you're using), the oldest non-spike Elf was 24 (or perhaps 25). No one in the country was old enough to actually have a rite of whatchmacallit until 2041.

But even sweeping away their teenage rebellion origins, the actual "current" condition of the Tirs also makes no sense just as a steady state. They are isolationist oppressive feudal societies that have no apparent natural resources and refuse to trade with anyone. So each one is basically like a tiny, underarmed North Korea that doesn't even have mineral wealth. And yet, we're supposed to be really concerned about how hard it is to steal their stuff. It's very confusing, because they can't possibly have anything we want! Why is it a problem that their closed society makes it hard to steal their shit?

-Username17

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sat Feb 11, 2012 11:22 am

because *waves hands* elven magic!

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Sat Feb 11, 2012 3:42 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:They are isolationist oppressive feudal societies that have no apparent natural resources and refuse to trade with anyone. So each one is basically like a tiny, underarmed North Korea that doesn't even have mineral wealth. And yet, we're supposed to be really concerned about how hard it is to steal their stuff. It's very confusing, because they can't possibly have anything we want! Why is it a problem that their closed society makes it hard to steal their shit?

That actually sounds like a plot hook. Either from a "what the hell are they guarding anyway?", or from "They have no resources, so who are they trading with?", or if neither is true then "How the hell are they operating post-scarcity, and how can I steal it and use it for me?"

Neurosis · Post by **Neurosis** » Sun Feb 12, 2012 8:06 am

FrankTrollman wrote:Aside from a few spike babies, the oldest Elves in the world at that time were seventeen fucking years old. Yeah... the Elvish separatist movements were literally children's crusades. Making those countries some sort of Lord of the Flies experiments.

You're forgetting the immortal douchebags like Ehran the Scribe and Lugh Surehand that actually founded the Tirs.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Feb 12, 2012 9:07 am

Schwarzkopf wrote:
FrankTrollman wrote:Aside from a few spike babies, the oldest Elves in the world at that time were seventeen fucking years old. Yeah... the Elvish separatist movements were literally children's crusades. Making those countries some sort of Lord of the Flies experiments.
You're forgetting the immortal douchebags like Ehran the Scribe and Lugh Surehand that actually founded the Tirs.

No, I'm not. There was a cabal of spike babies and immortals, but who were they actually leading? It's just a bunch of children. Like literally just a bunch of children. All of their foot soldiers in their war of succession were still in school.

The part that made it even weirder was how spike babies in the original source material were a secret that people weren't supposed to know about. Despite the fact that it would been blatantly obvious because when the first elvish secession movements began, only spike babies were old enough to start or sign the petitions. So the fact that it happened at all would make spike babies completely not a secret. Everyone would have to know about that shit because the leaders of the children's crusade were obviously not children.

-Username17

Neurosis · Post by **Neurosis** » Sun Feb 12, 2012 3:03 pm

I'm actually thinking the whole "child's crusade" angle might have been really, really cool if it had actually been played up in the source material rather than just a glossed over math error.

"Elven child soldiers wailing on the adult world" is almost as cool as "Red Injuns get magic first, fuck your nuclear bombs" as a plot point (and yes, Native American revenge/domination has always been one of my favorite things about SR).

Libertad · Post by **Libertad** » Sun Feb 12, 2012 9:30 pm

Woah, sounds like the Tirs are one of the major factors for anti-Elf sentiment in the Sixth World! Seriously, they probably give groups like Humanis more popular sentiment than they would normally get!

19. Assuming that you have a SIN and no criminal record, how easy is it to legitimately obtain a firearm in the UCAS and CAS? How strict are gun control laws? Can you still get a license for an assault rifle in Texas? How about non-conventional weaponry like silver bullets?

20. In terms of morality and human misery, which Megacorp has done the most to make the Sixth World a bad place to live?

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sun Feb 12, 2012 10:27 pm

19.) Easy enough. You need a Permit, that's all. So if you can buy a Permit from somebody, or obtain one from Work or from somewhere else because you need one to defend yourself, you get to have the Weapon you want. You can buy EVERYTHING that has a restricted rating, as long as you have a permit for it. FORBIDDEN weapons are another matter entirely and can, usually, not be legally owned by persons.
Not sure wether or not the right to bear arms is still in effect in the UCAS . .
But probability for it still being there is pretty high i'd guess.

20.) Put them all in a sack, hit with a shotgun, you will allways hit the one deserving it most.
There is no single most worst. They are ALL bad . . well, aside from Horizon, it seems, but people are paranoid about them because of that . .
No corp WANTS to make the 6th World a bad place to live in.
Because if it's a bad place to live in, people won't be able to do so usually.
And corps NEED people to survive.
Aztechnology (or at least certain elements in there) are actively trying to destroy the world by letting in the Horrors sooner rather than later.
Ares (or at least certain elements in there) made a deal with several insect shamans/queens . . And they are the worlds biggest weapons producer, i think . .
Saeder Krupp is the most biggest corp AND owned by the most biggest dragon . . so they could, in terms of quantity, be the one who has done the most to make the rest of the world suck . .

Neurosis · Post by **Neurosis** » Sun Feb 12, 2012 11:23 pm

20. In terms of morality and human misery, which Megacorp has done the most to make the Sixth World a bad place to live?

Aztechnology. Definitely.

Libertad · Post by **Libertad** » Mon Feb 13, 2012 1:53 am

Found out something:

On page 24 of Arsenal, the submachine gun the UN Peacekeepers use mentions that their organization is controlled by the Corporate Court.

Libertad · Post by **Libertad** » Tue Feb 14, 2012 1:19 am

21. Which megacorp can field the largest military force? I'd assume Ares.

22. What nations are considered "superpowers" in the Sixth World, if any? I'd assume that the Japanese Imperial State's a world power. Russia sounds like it's making a comeback.

23. What does Seattle have that attracts a wide variety of metahumans to move there?

24. How strong is anti-metahuman sentiment in Seattle due to this?

Neurosis · Post by **Neurosis** » Tue Feb 14, 2012 6:42 am

21. My bet would be Aztechnology, because remember they're not just a corporation, they're a country. Behind them, Saeder-Krupp is the largest megacorp in the world, but you're right that Ares might be more militarized.

22. I think with the rise of the megacorporations, superpower became a null concept. The AAAs are the superpowers, most or all nations don't really qualify.

23. It's complicated, and I think really pick a Seattle sourcebook from any edition and skim through it to get an idea of why. I know that's not the most helpful answer, since I'm being brief; possibly someone else would like to

24. The current mayor governor of Seattle is Kenneth Brackhaven. The primary leader of the Humanis policlub is his uncle, Karl Brackhaven. Which is fairly telling on this score.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Tue Feb 14, 2012 8:35 pm

Hmm, questions of my own pop up, am i allowed to ask them here too? O.o

Libertad · Post by **Libertad** » Tue Feb 14, 2012 9:43 pm

Stahlseele wrote:Hmm, questions of my own pop up, am i allowed to ask them here too? O.o

Certainly.

Go for it.