Morality and Ethics in Military Gameplay

[Afforess]

If you have nothing to contribute to a discussion, then you are just spamming it, which is against the rules.

Is this not a discussion about morality in military gameplay?

A discussion, yes. A thread for one-liner spam, no. Stating your opinion with no reasoning, no rational, or any sort of evidence or explanation is spam. You might as well shout "Me too!". No one cares about your opinion. This thread is about discussion.

[Christian Democrats]

If you want me to expand on my previous comment, military gameplay is based on pleasure and pain.

Raiders attempt to maximize their pleasure by invading other regions.

Defenders gain pleasure from what they do, and most of them believe they are mitigating others' pain.

As in sports, the pleasures and pains in military gameplay are those of winning and losing.

Morality comes into play only when some act has substantive effects* outside military gameplay -- e.g., one player sends another player a computer virus.

---

* Here, I contrast substantive effects with incidental effects, such as losing sleep due to being awake for the midnight update.

[Afforess]

If you want me to expand on my previous comment, military gameplay is based on pleasure and pain.

Raiders attempt to maximize their pleasure by invading other regions.

Defenders gain pleasure from what they do, and most of them believe they are mitigating others' pain.

As in sports, the pleasures and pains in military gameplay are those of winning and losing.

Morality comes into play only when some act has substantive effects* outside military gameplay -- e.g., one player sends another player a computer virus.

---

* Here, I contrast substantive effects with incidental effects, such as losing sleep due to being awake for the midnight update.

Er, you seem to have forgotten a key point. The natives. They did not ask to be raided.

[Christian Democrats]

If you want me to expand on my previous comment, military gameplay is based on pleasure and pain.

Raiders attempt to maximize their pleasure by invading other regions.

Defenders gain pleasure from what they do, and most of them believe they are mitigating others' pain.

As in sports, the pleasures and pains in military gameplay are those of winning and losing.

Morality comes into play only when some act has substantive effects* outside military gameplay -- e.g., one player sends another player a computer virus.

---

* Here, I contrast substantive effects with incidental effects, such as losing sleep due to being awake for the midnight update.

Er, you seem to have forgotten a key point. The natives. They did not ask to be raided.

The natives are part of military gameplay whether they want to be or not. It comes as part of the package.

This is a political simulation game; just as real-world countries must secure their borders, NationStates regions must protect themselves.

Of course, there are various ways of doing this: making sure there is a founder, implementing a password, imposing an endorsement cap, etc.

[Afforess]

Er, you seem to have forgotten a key point. The natives. They did not ask to be raided.

The natives are part of military gameplay whether they want to be or not. It comes as part of the package.

This is a political simulation game; just as real-world countries must secure their borders, NationStates regions must protect themselves.

Of course, there are various ways of doing this: making sure there is a founder, implementing a password, imposing an endorsement cap, etc.

So any region that is raided deserves to be raided? That seems rather heartless...

[Christian Democrats]

So any region that is raided deserves to be raided?

There is no desert in military gameplay. As I have said, military gameplay is amoral.

[Mad Jack]

Is this not a discussion about morality in military gameplay?

A discussion, yes. A thread for one-liner spam, no. Stating your opinion with no reasoning, no rational, or any sort of evidence or explanation is spam. You might as well shout "Me too!". No one cares about your opinion. This thread is about discussion.

As much as you'd love to be a mod/admin, guess what Afforess, you're not one. It's not your place to decide what spam is. If you think someone is spamming, go report it. Don't threadjack a discussion on morality to start a debate over what this thread is for.

Fyi, no one cares about your opinion either.

[The Grim Reaper]

The natives are part of military gameplay whether they want to be or not. It comes as part of the package.

This is a political simulation game; just as real-world countries must secure their borders, NationStates regions must protect themselves.

Of course, there are various ways of doing this: making sure there is a founder, implementing a password, imposing an endorsement cap, etc.

So any region that is raided deserves to be raided? That seems rather heartless...

It's a tough pill, but it's one that natives need to swallow.

Ask any RPer who - faintly - remembers the kind of people who quit after the Haven raid. Was I one of those people? Hell no - Haven happened while I was around, if I'm right, but I certainly wasn't a roleplayer back then. There aren't many of them left - because the sort of story they were forcefed by defenders was a story that the F7, NS and II RPers of about 2010-11 took hook, line, and sinker, and it's one that I've given up on as a bizarre and convoluted exaggeration of what regions are actually worth.

They're names, for christ's sake. This idea of communities being intrinsically linked to the regions they live in, and those 'poor natives', is actively detrimental to the Roleplay community at the very least - I've always been a staunch advocate for an open-gate RP region like Azhukali was or Greater Dienstad is (OOCly - ICly there are reasons I don't hang there). Military gameplayers don't need to stop military gameplaying - they just need to stop telling us to care, and roleplayers need to stop believing them, as so many already have.

[The Blaatschapen]

"Cosmopolitanism" and "Defenderism" and their ideals of a rainbow and butterfly and cupcake filled "utopia" where everyone is happy and nobody is ever actually threatened bears as much relationship to the real world as Miley Cyrus represents the average American female, and attracts the same quality of player--self-centered, arrogant, entitled, lazy, impatient, and almost completely unable to understand the subtle nuances of interpersonal interaction.

(emphasis mine)

*** Warned for trolling ***

Knock off the insults.

An appeal of this can be done in the Moderation forum.

The Blaatschapen - NS Moderator

[Cormac A Stark]

"Cosmopolitanism" and "Defenderism" and their ideals of a rainbow and butterfly and cupcake filled "utopia" where everyone is happy and nobody is ever actually threatened bears as much relationship to the real world as Miley Cyrus represents the average American female, and attracts the same quality of player--self-centered, arrogant, entitled, lazy, impatient, and almost completely unable to understand the subtle nuances of interpersonal interaction.

(emphasis mine)

*** Warned for trolling ***

Knock off the insults.

An appeal of this can be done in the Moderation forum.

The Blaatschapen - NS Moderator

You're... not serious, right? Have we leaped forward to April 1 and someone forgot to tell me?

Which specific player was she trolling? When did the rules become so stringent that they precluded any criticism of ideological groups? And don't you think as a player still (overly, in my opinion) active in gameplay as a member of the above group that you are perhaps just a touch too biased to make this judgment?

Is Nevadar the only one who can appeal this in Moderation or can anyone do it?

[Mallorea and Riva]

(emphasis mine)

*** Warned for trolling ***

Knock off the insults.

An appeal of this can be done in the Moderation forum.

The Blaatschapen - NS Moderator

You're... not serious, right? Have we leaped forward to April 1 and someone forgot to tell me?

Which specific player was she trolling? When did the rules become so stringent that they precluded any criticism of ideological groups? And don't you think as a player still (overly, in my opinion) active in gameplay as a member of the above group that you are perhaps just a touch too biased to make this judgment?

Is Nevadar the only one who can appeal this in Moderation or can anyone do it?

Generally speaking the mods reject third party appeals.

CD phrased the problem of relating morality to gameplay rather well I think.

[BobMoran4]

Evangelical Purity does not lead to empire.

[Charax]

A discussion, yes. A thread for one-liner spam, no. Stating your opinion with no reasoning, no rational, or any sort of evidence or explanation is spam. You might as well shout "Me too!". No one cares about your opinion. This thread is about discussion.

As much as you'd love to be a mod/admin, guess what Afforess, you're not one. It's not your place to decide what spam is. If you think someone is spamming, go report it. Don't threadjack a discussion on morality to start a debate over what this thread is for.

Fyi, no one cares about your opinion either.

Lets all minimod Afforess for what is (at best) a flimsy excuse for minimodding.

[Lun Noir]

This is a political simulation game; just as real-world countries must secure their borders, NationStates regions must protect themselves.

That parallel doesn't hold up.

The trouble is that, unlike the real world, there is no meaningful retaliation that can be exacted upon raiders. There is no chance of consequence for raiding whatsoever. Where-as in the real world, if a country constantly attacked and militarily occupied any nation they were capable of invading, they would very quickly be stripped of any and all economic support and, themselves, be decimated by united powers.

Even if, on a long shot, a raider 'home region' was invaded in retaliation, it would be more or less meaningless. Raiders don't appear to use their 'home region' for anything besides advertising and puppet parking, which is something they already do with all the other regions they create/ control/ have tagged. They aren't invested in their 'home region'. Any actual coordination they do appears to be done on off-site forums and the like.

To equate raiding behavior in NS as anything like a real world simulation is simply a ridiculous notion, due to the complete lack of risk or consequence.

[The Black Hat Guy]

The natives are part of military gameplay whether they want to be or not. It comes as part of the package.

This is a political simulation game; just as real-world countries must secure their borders, NationStates regions must protect themselves.

Of course, there are various ways of doing this: making sure there is a founder, implementing a password, imposing an endorsement cap, etc.

To go further than what Lun Noir said, let's pretend for a moment that the real-world analogy does hold up. Is it immoral for a RL nation to make repeated unprovoked attacks on hundreds of other nations with no justification? Of course it is, you could hardly find a person in the world that would disagree with that notion.

[Cerian Quilor]

Yes because in the real world, people die in war.

No one dies in NS conflict.

[Mahaj]

Yes because in the real world, people die in war.

No one dies in NS conflict.

But we have seen the NS equivalent

[Cormac A Stark]

Yes because in the real world, people die in war.

No one dies in NS conflict.

But we have seen the NS equivalent

It's interesting, because I've acknowledged that there is a disruptive and destructive aspect to invasion. Thus far defenders haven't responded to my point that there is a disruptive and destructive aspect to absolutist defenderism, i.e. that if you had your way military gameplay would essentially be eliminated, thus eliminating interregional conflict, and thus significantly diminishing interregional politics.

TL;DR: I've acknowledged that raids can sometimes lead people to decide to leave the game. When are you going to acknowledge that if defenders had their way, you would make many more people leave the game due to the impact on interregional conflict and politics?

[Lun Noir]

But we have seen the NS equivalent

It's interesting, because I've acknowledged that there is a disruptive and destructive aspect to invasion. Thus far defenders haven't responded to my point that there is a disruptive and destructive aspect to absolutist defenderism, i.e. that if you had your way military gameplay would essentially be eliminated, thus eliminating interregional conflict, and thus significantly diminishing interregional politics.

TL;DR: I've acknowledged that raids can sometimes lead people to decide to leave the game. When are you going to acknowledge that if defenders had their way, you would make many more people leave the game due to the impact on interregional conflict and politics?

There is a middle ground, of course. If raiding/ being raided were somehow an opt-in activity for regions, that would satisfy raiders' need to break stuff and those who enjoy rising to their challenge try to defend, while allowing those who are here for any number of other reasons to enjoy those without what is widely perceived as pointless disruption.

And no, passwording is not the 'final solution' to this, nor even is having a founder. Passwords are rather easily leaked, and founders shouldn't be obligated to babysit every single update of every single day to make sure the region isn't devastated.

The endorsement system is a reasonable idea to allow a region to control who is in charge through voting, but the current system of raiding and the ease of which nations can swap their WA membership around between puppets has shown and emphasized how it is utterly broken and has been perverted away from its intended function.

[Mahaj]

But we have seen the NS equivalent

It's interesting, because I've acknowledged that there is a disruptive and destructive aspect to invasion. Thus far defenders haven't responded to my point that there is a disruptive and destructive aspect to absolutist defenderism, i.e. that if you had your way military gameplay would essentially be eliminated, thus eliminating interregional conflict, and thus significantly diminishing interregional politics.

TL;DR: I've acknowledged that raids can sometimes lead people to decide to leave the game. When are you going to acknowledge that if defenders had their way, you would make many more people leave the game due to the impact on interregional conflict and politics?

I was responding to Cerian there, actually.

I also believe that your conclusion about what would happen 'if defenders had their way' is false. But also irrelevant, because your idea of what defenders would want is impossible to achieve, and thus doesn't necessarily factor into people's reasons for fighting raids.

[Cormac A Stark]

There is a middle ground, of course. If raiding/ being raided were somehow an opt-in activity for regions, that would satisfy raiders' need to break stuff and those who enjoy rising to their challenge try to defend, while allowing those who are here for any number of other reasons to enjoy those without what is widely perceived as pointless disruption.

Most founderless regions would opt out. Actually, any sane region would opt out, otherwise they would essentially be making themselves the equivalent of the Warzone regions. This would have the same practical effect of what absolutist defenders always seek, which is the elimination of military gameplay.

And no, passwording is not the 'final solution' to this, nor even is having a founder. Passwords are rather easily leaked, and founders shouldn't be obligated to babysit every single update of every single day to make sure the region isn't devastated.

I agree in regard to passwording; it's actually, in my view, a worse solution than leaving your region open because if a password is leaked to raiders your region can be easily raided but probably not successfully defended because defenders likely won't have the password.

I disagree in regard to Founders. That is the obvious way to "opt out" of military gameplay, and Founders don't need to watch every update. They can disable access to regional controls for Delegates, thus making it pointless to take the Delegacy since all a Delegate can do is vote on WA resolutions. This is what most foundered regions in fact do and it's why most of them are secure. Even the ones with executive Delegacies are rarely raided because few raiders want to bother raiding a region just to be kicked by the Founder less than an update later.

The endorsement system is a reasonable idea to allow a region to control who is in charge through voting, but the current system of raiding and the ease of which nations can swap their WA membership around between puppets has shown and emphasized how it is utterly broken and has been perverted away from its intended function.

I'm not sure it has been perverted away from its intended function. NationStates was designed for extremes, that's why answering issues in certain ways can sometimes have dramatic and extreme results for nation statistics. WA resolutions can have extreme effects on WA member nations. Etc. The ease with which regional leadership can change and the extreme effects this can have on a region are consistent with the other extreme effects that were deliberately built into the game, so if it really was an unintended consequence it's nevertheless an unintended consequence that meshes well with the rest of the game.

I also believe that your conclusion about what would happen 'if defenders had their way' is false. But also irrelevant, because your idea of what defenders would want is impossible to achieve, and thus doesn't necessarily factor into people's reasons for fighting raids.

Are you saying I'm wrong that interregional conflict would cease without invasion as a means to pursue it, I'm wrong that interregional politics would suffer as a result, or both?

It's not irrelevant. Regardless of whether your aims can be achieved or not, your aims are important -- particularly since your argument is one based in moral superiority. If your aim is essentially to end military gameplay, it's completely relevant to look at whether the effect that would have on interregional politics and overall interregional activity is really morally superior. My argument is that the effect your aims, if achieved, would have on overall interregional activity is at least as detrimental as the effect invasions have on individual regions, and that absolutist defender aims are at least as morally problematic as invasion. That's relevant for as long as defenders try to claim the moral high ground.

[Lun Noir]

There is a middle ground, of course. If raiding/ being raided were somehow an opt-in activity for regions, that would satisfy raiders' need to break stuff and those who enjoy rising to their challenge try to defend, while allowing those who are here for any number of other reasons to enjoy those without what is widely perceived as pointless disruption.

Most founderless regions would opt out. Actually, any sane region would opt out, otherwise they would essentially be making themselves the equivalent of the Warzone regions. This would have the same practical effect of what absolutist defenders always seek, which is the elimination of military gameplay.

However, if Gameplay is truly a solid selling point and generates life and activity as is the often touted claim and justification to raiding, then enough regions would remain open to it that Gameplayers could still have their run of the field. Personally, I do not believe that raiding does generate any sort of life or activity, and see it as purely disruptive.

I disagree in regard to Founders. That is the obvious way to "opt out" of military gameplay, and Founders don't need to watch every update. They can disable access to regional controls for Delegates, thus making it pointless to take the Delegacy since all a Delegate can do is vote on WA resolutions. This is what most foundered regions in fact do and it's why most of them are secure. Even the ones with executive Delegacies are rarely raided because few raiders want to bother raiding a region just to be kicked by the Founder less than an update later.

They could take regional controls away from Delegates, but that eliminates being able to have any meaningful elections in the region. Additionally, if a region is raided, the raiders can (And sometimes do) banject a bunch of folks and suppress the entire RMB. Again, consequence for the invaded, with absolutely no possibility for retaliation.

It is this imbalance which seems the most unreasonable, to me.

I'm not sure it has been perverted away from its intended function. NationStates was designed for extremes, that's why answering issues in certain ways can sometimes have dramatic and extreme results for nation statistics. WA resolutions can have extreme effects on WA member nations. Etc. The ease with which regional leadership can change and the extreme effects this can have on a region are consistent with the other extreme effects that were deliberately built into the game, so if it really was an unintended consequence it's nevertheless an unintended consequence that meshes well with the rest of the game.

You and I have wildly different interpretations of this point on multiple levels and are going to have to disagree...

[Unibot III]

Cormac is using a consequentialist argument, but The Defender Argument is deontologist. The enjoyment that comes from invading is schadenfreude-- it uses people as a means to others' amusement and violates their community's autonomy. Regardless of whether or not a lot of people get giggly over doing it -- the shape ... the very form of the act is wrong in and of itself.

We can think of this as a thought experiment:

Say there's a criminal in a county jail and a mob is outside the county jail -- they will burn the entire village down in a mad frenzy if the criminal isn't released (so he can be lynched). What do you do? Do you release the criminal and let him be lynched? Or do you fuel an angry mob against your village?

The Utilitarian says please the people, let the public lynch him. The Deontologist says that the criminal has a special sort of right not to be lynched -- the fact that this may endanger the village and anger an entire mob of people is not a factor in the Deontologist's moral calculus.

[Mallorea and Riva]

Cormac is using a consequentialist argument, but The Defender Argument is deontologist. The enjoyment that comes from invading is schadenfreude-- it uses people as a means to others' amusement and violates their community's autonomy. Regardless of whether or not a lot of people get giggly over doing it -- the shape ... the very form of the act is wrong in and of itself.

We can think of this as a thought experiment:

Say there's a criminal in a county jail and a mob is outside the county jail -- they will burn the entire village down in a mad frenzy if the criminal isn't released (so he can be lynched). What do you do? Do you release the criminal and let him be lynched? Or do you fuel an angry mob against your village?

The Utilitarian says please the people, let the public lynch him. The Deontologist says that the criminal has a special sort of right not to be lynched -- the fact that this may endanger the village and anger an entire mob of people is not a factor in the Deontologist's moral calculus.

Fiat justitia, pereat mundus.

[The Black Hat Guy]

Cormac is using a consequentialist argument, but The Defender Argument is deontologist. The enjoyment that comes from invading is schadenfreude-- it uses people as a means to others' amusement and violates their community's autonomy. Regardless of whether or not a lot of people get giggly over doing it -- the shape ... the very form of the act is wrong in and of itself.

We can think of this as a thought experiment:

Say there's a criminal in a county jail and a mob is outside the county jail -- they will burn the entire village down in a mad frenzy if the criminal isn't released (so he can be lynched). What do you do? Do you release the criminal and let him be lynched? Or do you fuel an angry mob against your village?

The Utilitarian says please the people, let the public lynch him. The Deontologist says that the criminal has a special sort of right not to be lynched -- the fact that this may endanger the village and anger an entire mob of people is not a factor in the Deontologist's moral calculus.

I'm going to have to go with Mallorea and Riva on this one, to some extent. Which is worse, few leaving the game because raiders invaded their regions, or a quite large percentage of people leaving the game due to a lack of an R/D game? Blindly following a concept of ethics despite all evidence pointing to its detrimental effects is not ideal.

That being said, griefing is still immoral. There are so many other ways to raid than to destroy a region in its entirety, and destroying that region does cause fairly objective harm to many natives of the region. If there is another option, which there clearly is, then griefing rather than leaving reversible signs of the raid is immoral, and should be denounced if not downright prohibited.