Erudite Observer wrote:Erudite Observer: Assuming your ethical theories in "Paradise Found" are correct, would there ever be a hypothetical situation in which invading a region and taking over its native government would be a morally good action? If so, when?
Unibot: “Morally good”? Probably not.
“Morally Permissible”? Possibly. War can permit direct military action, for example.
It's interesting because I don't take the approach that some raiders or raider-inclined individuals like Venico and Cerian have taken in that thread, that there is no place for moral argument at all in this game. I agree that "real life" morality shouldn't be applied to the game and that the game shouldn't be taken so personally, but I also agree with Unibot that NationStates is a fundamentally political game and that it wouldn't be a realistic or interesting political game without in-game concepts of morality and arguments over those concepts.
The problem with Unibot's moral approach to NationStates military gameplay is that it maximizes the effect that invasion can -- but does not always -- have on individual regions and their communities, without looking at the broader effect that invasion can have on the overall game. Yes, it's true, invasion can be disruptive and destructive of individual regions and their communities (though it can also stimulate activity in these communities and bring once dead communities back to life, and it has done this). This disruption and potential destruction would seem at first glance to lead one to believe invasion should be considered morally wrong, though its destructive impact is mitigated in that every act of invasion is ultimately reversible. Nothing can actually destroy a community in NationStates besides that community's decision to allow itself to be destroyed, as even the complete destruction of a community's home region through refounding cannot prevent that community from relocating and thriving elsewhere (as the community of Hippiedom has now done in Hippy Haven, to use one more recent example).
The real issue with Unibot's simplistic moral argument, though, is that it fails to take into account the impact that the absence of invasion would have on the overall game and specifically on interregional political gameplay. It's not an exaggeration to say that invasion both drives interregional conflict and facilitates it; even when the invasion of regions is not the reason for conflict (which it certainly is for the conflict between raider and defender regions), it is ultimately the only real means to pursue conflict in NationStates. Without invasion, regions would essentially be limited to sending strongly worded letters to each other to express conflict. Without invasion, conflict in NationStates would die and with it any meaningful interregional politics. While it would be too much of an exaggeration to say that the game would die without invasion -- it wouldn't, as there would still be generalites, issue answerers, roleplayers, WA authors, etc., all of whom would be pretty much unaffected -- it's accurate to say that if every region stopped invading other regions, as Unibot argues is morally right, activity in interregional politics would suffer if not cease because any meaningful expression of conflict between regions would stop.
My moral position on invasion and defending differs significantly from Unibot's in light of this reality. While I acknowledge that invasion can be morally questionable due to the disruptive and destructive impact it can have on individual regions, I see it as a necessary evil that drives and facilitates interregional conflict and thus interregional political activity. Yes, invaders are essentially the "bad guys" -- but we're the bad guys without whom interregional politics would be dull and eventually, due to that dullness, non-existent. In that sense we are also, to some degree, the heroes of NationStates because we are the drivers and facilitators of interregional political activity. Also in that sense, at least some defenders can be seen as the villains of NationStates in that their absolutist insistence on ending interregional invasion would damage if not destroy interregional political activity. While I certainly wouldn't argue that invasion is always morally right, I also wouldn't argue that it's morally wrong -- at least not anymore wrong than defending -- and would instead argue that none of this is black and white, but rather a moral gray area. Yes, individual founderless regions might be better off if invasion ceased; but what about other regions whose main focus and reason for existence is interregional politics, and the interregional conflict that drives such politics and keeps them fresh and interesting?
There is an argument to be made that invasion is still wrong because it usually involves foundered regions or founderless regions that are extremely difficult to invade (i.e., game-created regions) carrying out conflict against each other by proxy in founderless regions that have little or nothing to do with the conflict. This is true, but game mechanics necessitate this type of conflict and as long as game mechanics remain as they are -- allowing Founders to exist at all and allowing GCR Delegates and governments to build nearly impenetrable fortresses against invasion -- this type of proxy conflict is the only type of conflict we can have, and we must have some conflict in order for interregional politics to survive. That's why Unibot's "War can permit direct military action" sounds nice in theory, but in practice he is advocating limiting interregional conflict to a type of conflict that game mechanics makes exceedingly rare. If we limited ourselves to his narrow "direct military action," the practical effect would be the same as eliminating interregional conflict altogether -- it would practically remove conflict from interregional politics, and interregional politics would significantly suffer as a result.
