Beef is again being served

[The Notorious Mad Jack]

Unibot evidently got a thesaurus as an early Christmas present.

[Lord Dominator]

Unibot evidently got a thesaurus as an early Christmas present.

I'm fairly sure he ate one sometime before I joined this game

[Unibot III]

The NS cell of the organization is a paranoia-fueled kakistocracy that cannibalizes itself. It's the Peter Principle in action.

I'd argue that it's more like the Dilbert Principle, but I otherwise don't disagree with you on this matter

Heh, it's technically negative selection: a commonly-observed symptom of authoritarian hierarchies. It's not exclusive to NPO, it can exhibit itself in any kind of leadership structure where the power to fire/ban is unilateral.

Unibot evidently got a thesaurus as an early Christmas present.

New boots, actually.

Unibot evidently got a thesaurus as an early Christmas present.

I'm fairly sure he ate one sometime before I joined this game

I'm afraid to say that my actual dictionary is from 1869; it's my grandfather's. Not a word of a lie!

[Consular]

Oh dear

More or less my reaction yeah

And like Dark has said -- in the logs you downplay your own importance and claim you're a nobody, but then in your moderately tedious subsequent posts claim you are responsible for everything? This is like something out of Balder's ridiculous playbook. Don't be a Balder.

Short version is -- you are not responsible for everything. You are just one of many mistakes the NPO has made.

Also:

"Don't drag my name through the mud by taking me out of context."

Speaking very plainly, Milograd -- you're already covered in it. Your name ain't worth all that much to most people man

[Feux]

I feel as though this OP draws a lot of credit away from Feux's involvement in Lazarus and the NPO. But it was certainly a fun and interesting read.

Yeah, it happens.

[Consular]

(Honestly I might even say Feux is better at this subversion business than you)

[Armaros]

I do not have the time to quote your entire post and adress every point for now, my apologies.

That said:

You seem to be criticising the NPO delenda est side because they do not immediatley show results. However, Rome didn't fall in one day either. Something as big as attacking the government of a feeder is not something you pull of in a day. Fairly certain you know that.

Second: So, I'm a pawn in this war? There exists no army without soldiers. We can't all be leaders. And to turn this around: most NPOers are, according to you, pawns as well then. They do not play a key role, they're used by their command and they're generally unimportant.

Sorry that I couldn't respond to every point you make. I will do so once I get home and have some time.

[Milozoldyck]

It would behoove you to be a little more subtle in your efforts to demoralize people. The folks actually helping with this know the plan, and know it won't be over in a month. They know there's a lot of work ahead, but it's not impossible, just difficult, and we're all in it for the long haul

RE: Bold

I said a month because I didn't want to encourage Armaros to waste too much of his time. It'd be a dick move for me to say "go help them for a year and then see if you feel like you've wasted your time."

You know better.

RE: Underlined, particularly the red

I disagree. Particularly with the red.

Who cares if I'm a pawn or not? If I'm having fun doing it, then I don't necessarily care what I'm defined. What's the point of playing if there is no fun involved?

RE: Bold

That's a perfectly valid mindset! If you're having fun, keep at it.

[Milozoldyck]

@The Gilded Star: Thank you for responding, but as you said, you're not committed enough to post "NPO Delenda Est," so I don't intend to respond. I'll respond if you do.

@Unibot: Maybe Feux deserves more credit for the dysfunction. I'll give it to him if he wants! Certainly, nothing would've been possible without him. I'm not being overly self-important. I'm taking credit for the mistakes, not for the circumstances that made them possible. There's quite a difference.

Unibot evidently got a thesaurus as an early Christmas present.

I'd be audacious enough to propose that he actually knew those words.

Oh dear

More or less my reaction yeah

And like Dark has said -- in the logs you downplay your own importance and claim you're a nobody, but then in your moderately tedious subsequent posts claim you are responsible for everything? This is like something out of Balder's ridiculous playbook. Don't be a Balder.

Don't ever compare me to Balder.

I imagine you're familiar with the concept of "time."

i.e. I am a nobody in 2018, but I was fairly involved in Lazarus and The Pacific in 2013.

That's all I'll say, since this is all so tedious for you.

[Milozoldyck]

I do not have the time to quote your entire post and adress every point for now, my apologies.

That said:

You seem to be criticising the NPO delenda est side because they do not immediatley show results. However, Rome didn't fall in one day either. Something as big as attacking the government of a feeder is not something you pull of in a day. Fairly certain you know that.

I'm criticizing the NPO Delenda Est side because they're extremely incompetent and dishonest.

The NPO is not going anywhere. Plain and simple.

Actually...

I'll make a bet with you. If we're both playing NS in five years, how about I get to own your forum signature if the NPO hasn't fallen yet? And you get to own mine otherwise. I think that's a fun wager. "Rome didn't fall in one day," but 5 years should be sufficient.

EDIT: I'm willing to be flexible with the number of years.

Second: So, I'm a pawn in this war? There exists no army without soldiers. We can't all be leaders. And to turn this around: most NPOers are, according to you, pawns as well then. They do not play a key role, they're used by their command and they're generally unimportant.

Sorry that I couldn't respond to every point you make. I will do so once I get home and have some time.

RE: Bold

You're 100% right. My suggesting you're a pawn wasn't intended to discourage you: It was to make sure that you knew. You know and seem to be prepared to fulfill that role. That's awesome.

RE: Underlined

Wrong. NPOers are just minding their own business, being citizens in The Pacific. I don't think they're foot soldiers: There isn't a war for them to be fighting in. You're just hurling shit at their government for the actions of the previous government.

And yes, I know, NPO is at war with The Black Hawks. However, that "war" is almost as farcical and non-existent as this one!

---

EDIT: Not even a week and a half later and the Pacific has already announced the end of their war against the Black Hawks.

Don't mind me, folks: good ol' Comrade Milo is washed up, self-important, and out of touch!

[Armaros]

I do not have the time to quote your entire post and adress every point for now, my apologies.

That said:

You seem to be criticising the NPO delenda est side because they do not immediatley show results. However, Rome didn't fall in one day either. Something as big as attacking the government of a feeder is not something you pull of in a day. Fairly certain you know that.

I'm criticizing the NPO Delenda Est side because they're extremely incompetent and dishonest.

I'd say that so far, we've been more honest about what happened then the NPO, calling the truth "fake news" and "slander". As to the incompetent part: I don't think the war has been going on for long enough for you to determine that.

The NPO is not going anywhere. Plain and simple.
I'll make a bet with you. If we're both playing NS in five years, how about I get to own your forum signature if the NPO hasn't fallen yet? And you get to own mine otherwise. I think that's a fun wager. "Rome didn't fall in one day," but 5 years should be sufficient.

If it hasn't fallen in 5 years, I'll admit you were right. As to my signature, I'm quite fond of mine, and I don't like to bet on anything. That said, I'll do it, if only for the fun of it.

Second: So, I'm a pawn in this war? There exists no army without soldiers. We can't all be leaders. And to turn this around: most NPOers are, according to you, pawns as well then. They do not play a key role, they're used by their command and they're generally unimportant.

Sorry that I couldn't respond to every point you make. I will do so once I get home and have some time.

RE: Bold

You're 100% right. My suggesting you're a pawn wasn't intended to discourage you: It was to make sure that you knew. You know and seem to be prepared to fulfill that role. That's awesome.

RE: Underlined

Wrong. NPOers are just minding their own business, being citizens in The Pacific. I don't think they're foot soldiers: There isn't a war for them to be fighting in. You're just hurling shit at their government for the actions of the previous government.

And, in all honesty, can you say that that is unfair on our part? The NPO didn't hurl shit at us, instead they attempted to coup and subvert us. Your "new" government downplays the actions of it's "former" members heavily; it wouldn't surprise me if the banned individuals would be allowed back in after a while. Hell, your officers even call it "slander" and "lies". They downplay it but they also defend and deny the severity of it.

NPO delenda est on your request.

[Glacikaldr]

Just posting NPO delenda est to give Milo something to talk about.

[Cormactopia Prime]

This thread is nothing more than classic Milo being Milo, a heaping helping of self-aggrandizement with a side of mind games.

He's trying to demoralize enemies of the NPO, plain and simple. The only useful purpose of this thread is to show that his spiel about how much he's changed and how much more straightforward he planned to be now was just a spiel. Aside from that, I don't know why people are engaging with any of it.

[Darkesia]

Why do I read the word "spiel" as if I were born to a Jewish family in New York? I'm suddenly fluent in Yiddish?

I have to agree with Cormac's pretense here. If Milo were attempting to remove himself from GP and sequester himself in the RP world, we would not be seeing this post and we certainly would not have seen it get drawn out for this length of time.

[Milozoldyck]

BREAKING NEWS: MILO MADE HIS POINT ON PAGE 2, STOPS SERVING BEEF
His attempts to feed gameplay much-needed beef, and to save them from themselves, fall flat, but Milo takes solace knowing that he earnestly tried to warn you all

Milograd constructed a golden statue of himself today to celebrate how: 1) he isn't usually wrong
and 2) he's got a very inflated ego because of it.

THE GAMEPLAY FORUM — Having made his point on page top of "Beef Thread / AKA: NPO War is Mostly My Fault," and realizing that nothing further is to be achieved from it, Milograd posted another very meta article of "...He's Not Wrong™" today. The article acknowledges that everyone is deluded and hopeless, and that Milograd is going to go spend time on something more productive than the joke of a war against the New Pacific Order.

Stay tuned for an announcement from the Police Chief regarding the investigation of Milograd's missing fucks. No news at 11.

© 2018 Vandelay Industries, specializing in mixing up references and propane accessories

[Milozoldyck]

This thread is nothing more than classic Milo being Milo, a heaping helping of self-aggrandizement with a side of mind games.

He's trying to demoralize enemies of the NPO, plain and simple. The only useful purpose of this thread is to show that his spiel about how much he's changed and how much more straightforward he planned to be now was just a spiel. Aside from that, I don't know why people are engaging with any of it.

Uh, nope.

I just had a busy day today. I'm home now and got to make my post: I was always gonna stop serving beef.

Sayonara, dude.

[Yokiria]

Your thread will not be missed.

[The Notorious Mad Jack]

Disagree. This thread was the most sense seen in gameplay in some time.

Milo warned you. He's probably right.

[Solorni]

In your second post, you discuss how the New Pacific Order has been waiting for a leader like Lord of Darkness and how you believe you were able to subvert the New Pacific Order but believe in their ideology. While you tout Lord of Darkness as being the first competent leadership for awhile... he is not from NationStates and while you say that Gaspo, Feux, AMOM, Karpathos, and yourself were "utter crap", they were the best that the New Pacific Order could do. It seems that the New Pacific Order was bereft of other options, especially when they kept turning to the same people; like Feux despite his fall from grace during the NLO saga.

This to me seems to have been the real issue for the NPO. It wasn't that they kept turning to the same people who had caused major issues previously for them, but that they did so because they literally had no one else on NS. This point is really obvious when the new Emperor is not from NS and in fact makes a lot of their decisions regarding personnel make more sense. So the question for me really, is how does the New Pacific Order fix that problem?

[Blight-Bane]

This to me seems to have been the real issue for the NPO. It wasn't that they kept turning to the same people who had caused major issues previously for them, but that they did so because they literally had no one else on NS. This point is really obvious when the new Emperor is not from NS and in fact makes a lot of their decisions regarding personnel make more sense. So the question for me really, is how does the New Pacific Order fix that problem?

I don't really get that. People keep going to Cormac and Souls to shit disturb. Milo is still pushing buttons, and Unibot is circling the fringes too. If you want any change to happen, practice what you preach. Who cares where the new emperor is from? I don't. It's just more of the same GP bullshit. Yawn.

[The Derpy Democratic Republic Of Herp]

From the title I thought this was an NSG post.

[Solorni]

This to me seems to have been the real issue for the NPO. It wasn't that they kept turning to the same people who had caused major issues previously for them, but that they did so because they literally had no one else on NS. This point is really obvious when the new Emperor is not from NS and in fact makes a lot of their decisions regarding personnel make more sense. So the question for me really, is how does the New Pacific Order fix that problem?

I don't really get that. People keep going to Cormac and Souls to shit disturb. Milo is still pushing buttons, and Unibot is circling the fringes too. If you want any change to happen, practice what you preach. Who cares where the new emperor is from? I don't. It's just more of the same GP bullshit. Yawn.

Sorry you didn't "get" the question, I'll try state it more plainly. I would also recommend in the future that if you don't get the question that you ask for clarification before posting... particularly when you state in the beginning that you didn't understand it. The question was how does the New Pacific Order fix its talent gap? I do think it is an issue for them and I think it is something that all sides can agree on given that the loss of the players they had has resulted in them having to go to outside sources to replace them with. I used to think that Feux was made a Senator again simply because of a shared philosophy, but I think the loss of the recent group of players has demonstrated that it was also heavily because of a lack of talent development. This is a point that Milograd makes when he calls them all "crap" and when he discusses how The Pacific is doing internally.

So it's not an issue to me in and of itself that Lord of Darkness is from a different game. The issue for me is what it represents; which is that the New Pacific Order had no one from NationStates it felt were capable. It has clearly been a major factor when it came to the New Pacific Order bringing back former disgraced members and elevating them to positions of power.

As well, both Pergamon and Milograd have referenced this idea that the state of the NS New Pacific Order is lamentable and that it needs to do better. Pergamon referenced it when he discussed that he did what he did to try to make the New Pacific Order a super power again. Milograd referenced it when he discusses how he thinks LoD can get the New Pacific Order in NS back on track after the delegacies of Krulltopia and Ale. This idea from former Senators in the NS NPO that they were inferior to their fellow feeders and perhaps the PW/CN NPO was clearly a major factor and motivation in the New Pacific Order deciding to try to become more powerful by taking over Lazarus and potentially Osiris.

So I do believe that the question as to how the New Pacific Order plans to rectify their talent gap to be an important one and also as a region builder I find it fascinating.

[Blight-Bane]

snip

Clearly, you didn't 'get' it. You're too comfortable taking pot shots at the NPO from behind the bandwagon to understand that I was calling bs. My point was to counter what you said about NPO having to look outside of NS because it had no other choice. Considering it's potential choices within NS, it's hardly surprising it would recruit from without.

[Darkesia]

That's precisely what Solorni said, without being rude about it. And she asked how they plan to fix it.
Maybe we should ask that question of the NS NPO leadership in a venue they are more comfortable. I haven't a clue where that would be, but they clearly don't follow the happenings in a Milo thread.

[Unibot III]

The NPO is not going anywhere. Plain and simple.
I'll make a bet with you. If we're both playing NS in five years, how about I get to own your forum signature if the NPO hasn't fallen yet? And you get to own mine otherwise. I think that's a fun wager. "Rome didn't fall in one day," but 5 years should be sufficient.

I think this perspective is ahistorical. There are a number of recorded instances where the NPO almost fell due to either near-attempted self-destruction by the Emperor or a cataclysmic game malfunction (a 1 in 55,000 event). I would suggest that the fact that the NPO has survived fifteen years is not a statement on its inevitability but in all reality, a product of luck - I would have given the NPO, a 15% chance of surviving more than fifteen years, given what we now know about the destructive tendencies (and its frequency) of those that can rise to the leadership of the New Pacific Order. Several of the people that have come to lead the NPO have eventually loathed their own Emperorship and even held the NPO in contempt.

I would also predict that the chances of the New Pacific Order surviving an additional five years is 53.43%, factoring in the chances of self-destruction and game malfunction. So the survival of the NPO is the odds-on favourite, but it's not a terrific margin of security. Betting odds, 7/8.

Baked into that self-destruction prediction is several considerations, like what are the probabilities of various frequencies of new Emperors in that time frame (for instance, I would say there's a 4.53% chance that LoD remains delegate for all five years, and there's a 74% chance there will be precisely two more Emperors after LoD in the next five years), and most importantly, how open they would be to destroying the NPO.

I'm inclined to reference a relevant blog here from Dominic Cummings on Brexit, who spoke about how people can overwrite history to ignore probabilities and branching histories.

Confirmation bias kicks in and evidence seeming to suggest that what actually happened would happen looms larger. People who are quite wrong quickly persuade themselves they were 'mostly right' and 'had a strong feeling' unlike, of course, the blind fools around them. Soon our actual history seems like the only way things could have played out. Brexit had to happen. Trump had to win.

It's, in all probability, pretty unlikely for the NPO to have survived as long as it has. If we were to rerun the past fifteen years, seven times, I would expect that the NPO would only survive this long in one of those seven simulations. In six of those seven cases, we'd instead be talking about the product of a post-NPO free-for-all.

For the NPO to be destroyed tomorrow, all that's required is for one player, Aleisyr, to say "fuck it" and banject a lot of people. This is a constant state of vulnerability that the NPO faces and it's not aided by the fact that the NPO, as a military junta, attracts extremists and leaders with destructive personalities.