Many people are surprised that I'm financially supporting any group instead of demanding them self-sufficiency as individualist doctrines demand. This is a complete misunderstanding of individualism.
Individualism demands that everyone take care of himself and instead of leeching on others. It allows me to spend my money as I want, opposing to collectivist ideas that claim that I'm responsible for the well-being of others. "Well-being" is the key word here, according to the collectivist ideas, we must support one unconditionally, just because he is human/poor/countrymate/race-mate/religion-mate, leading to a higher standard of living for him. The EVE-version of it would be handing out money to people just because they are people/poor/newbies/same alliance as me. Then they'd use this money whatever way it provides them the most fun.
SRP doesn't provide fun to anyone, it merely decreases the loss of a defeat. Dreads aren't fun to fly, you drop them, press siege and from there you are immobile until destroyed or jump out. It's a pretty boring gameplay that you do to inflict huge damage to an enemy by destroying their key structures or supercapitals. These are enablers to reach some goal. By giving out support to those who work for the same goal as me, I'm getting closer to my goal.
Of course I could just keep the money and use it on my ships. However we can agree that it wouldn't lead to stellar results. So giving my money "away" to a group that has proven to be effective in killing my enemies is simply the optimal route to reach my goal. It's not simply individualism, it's trickle-down economics in action. My money gets its way even to the humble Cormorant flier as long as he is able to provide a valuable service: place another ship belonging to space communism to the ash heap of history.
PS: Raging Ducks, the corp that was kicked from Goonswarm for not PvP-ing (they were #4 killers in 2014, best if you consider corp sizes) was killing Goons and their minions for the last months. There were arguments over continuing or not, leading to a separation. Those who want to carry on the only real war left in EVE joined Mordus Angels under the name Raging Angels. They are recruiting, so if you are a Russian speaking PvP-er looking to join MoA, now is your chance to apply and start to slay the minions of Evil.
Individualism demands that everyone take care of himself and instead of leeching on others. It allows me to spend my money as I want, opposing to collectivist ideas that claim that I'm responsible for the well-being of others. "Well-being" is the key word here, according to the collectivist ideas, we must support one unconditionally, just because he is human/poor/countrymate/race-mate/religion-mate, leading to a higher standard of living for him. The EVE-version of it would be handing out money to people just because they are people/poor/newbies/same alliance as me. Then they'd use this money whatever way it provides them the most fun.
SRP doesn't provide fun to anyone, it merely decreases the loss of a defeat. Dreads aren't fun to fly, you drop them, press siege and from there you are immobile until destroyed or jump out. It's a pretty boring gameplay that you do to inflict huge damage to an enemy by destroying their key structures or supercapitals. These are enablers to reach some goal. By giving out support to those who work for the same goal as me, I'm getting closer to my goal.
Of course I could just keep the money and use it on my ships. However we can agree that it wouldn't lead to stellar results. So giving my money "away" to a group that has proven to be effective in killing my enemies is simply the optimal route to reach my goal. It's not simply individualism, it's trickle-down economics in action. My money gets its way even to the humble Cormorant flier as long as he is able to provide a valuable service: place another ship belonging to space communism to the ash heap of history.
PS: Raging Ducks, the corp that was kicked from Goonswarm for not PvP-ing (they were #4 killers in 2014, best if you consider corp sizes) was killing Goons and their minions for the last months. There were arguments over continuing or not, leading to a separation. Those who want to carry on the only real war left in EVE joined Mordus Angels under the name Raging Angels. They are recruiting, so if you are a Russian speaking PvP-er looking to join MoA, now is your chance to apply and start to slay the minions of Evil.
10 comments:
As a solo player (so-called "individualist") I am not feeding the upper echelons through taxation and enabling them to protect their top-down income, allowing them to use these incomes as they want.
The SRP is a great gimmick for the alliances' leadership to say " we are giving back to the masses".
I am sure that asking an alliance to provide some kind of transparency into the corps and alliances wallets to their line members would be an interesting capability.
It would allow anyone within an alliance to be able to effectively audit how their "alliances" money is really being used, and find out the real portion that is truly going back to the masses, and which portion that is there to feed ISKs to the top echelon leaderships.
May be the true "individualists" would become visible.
Would this be the equivalent of not providing money as welfare but still providing the minimum shelter, health services and education to poor families? Enough that their mistakes do not drag an entire city into crime and disease but not so much as to encourage joblessness?
You misrepresent collectivism. Collectivism is not giving money to spend how one sees fit, that is not collectivism, that is charity (and even that usually comes with strings attached).
Collectivism does not just give money to people to spend the way they see fit. It gives them money to spend on very specific things - food, shelter, education etc. It is not about directly improving standarts of living. It is about creating an infrastructure, where these standarts can increase.
The biggest misconception about collectivism is that collectivism is about always putting collective goals ahead of individual goals. This is not how collectivism works. In fact, when collectivism devolves into that, it fails.
Collectivism is, ultimately, about admitting that you NEED other people. Thus not just running around being all individual and independent, but actually considering collective goals as important, and - in some (but not all) instances - recognising that some individual goals cannot be achieved without collective goals achieved first.
What you are doing with funding SRPs (because your personal goals need you to have access to a collective of somewhat competent Corm-flyers) is very collectivist, no matter how you slice it.
IMO stop denying and embrace it. You need the collective, so you are funding it.
Spot on.
Nothing wrong with exchanging value (isk) for value (destruction of your pet peeve alliance) on a VOLUNTARY basis. No charity involved on either side.
The trouble comes in when some sort of "assistance" is coerced from a party (i.e. taxpayer) without the option to refuse.
@Dangphat: no, it's equivalent to providing them free tools, education and bus tickets between their homes and workplaces to be able work.
@maxim: capitalism is the best way to find the people you need. I need food, so I go to the shop and pay them. Collectivism forces me to include those people I don't need. I do need PvP-ers to fight the Imperium. I pay them according to their performance.
"capitalism is the best way to find the people you need. I need food, so I go to the shop and pay them."
You are also paying those that you do not need in the alliances that you are paying. The capitalist would get rid of the excess baggage, and slimline it so that it more efficient, with better ROI, and lower wasteage.
The capitalist would also want to know where the ISK was going, as the sum you are paying appears to be well in excess of their ship policy requirements.
It is of course possible that inefficiency and bloating are an important feature of capitalism.
No, profit is. In the grocery shop the prices don't just cover the rent, the electricity bill and buying the wares from the farmers. There is also a profit that goes to the pocket of the shop owner. That's what motivates him to keep running the shop.
I can't care less how much ISK Gen Eve takes as long as he runs MoA well. If he stops running it well, it'll stop being #1 CFC killer and then I stop buying his wares.
@anaon: Gevlon has demonstrated time and time again that he is interested in the return on his investment. He invests in corps/alliances that shoot goons and shoots them well. I should not need to point to any of Gevlon's previous posts where he drops support for a group because they are not efficiently killing goons.
@maxim: Collectivism is not very efficient. Charity, on the other hand, tends to be more efficient, particularly when you deal with volunteers (as opposed to employees who are paid benefits and pensions).
The critical problem with collectivism is that the individual has no choice how their money is really spent. If I see that the government is not effectively using the money, I can't get them to spend it more efficiently. On the other hand, if I am giving to a charity, I can tell them to spend it more efficiently or else I give the money elsewhere or start my own charity. The secondary problem with collectivism is that it imposes a moral and ethical view on the people it takes money from (via taxation/fees). This moral and ethic can sometimes be at odds with the morals and ethics of those it is imposed upon.
There is no perfect system, there are better and worse systems, but no best system because, in the end, people themselves are corrupt. It is better to have capitalism and encourage people to be morally responsible and, more critical to effective capitalism: have enlightened self-interest.
In the end collectivism is just someone telling you how they plan to spend the money they took from you whether you like how it will be spent or not.
@Gevlon
Capitalism and collectivism are not mutually exclusive.
Capitalism is a form of resource exchange organization. Collectivism is more about ethics, and can exist on top of nearly any resource organization system.
@S Riojas
Firstly, you seem to be in the trap that capitalism and collectivism are mutually exclusive.
You seem to be confusing collectivism with socialism. And even capitalism and socialism are not really mutually exclusive - plenty social programs in both USA and Europe.
When you start talking efficiency, i need to ask you - who is measuring efficiency and how?
Closing down a museum that is no longer attracting enough visitors to sustain itself may be an efficient thing to do for the individual wallet. But is it an efficient thing to do in terms of preservation of human knowledge?
What about having people not receive medcare because they can't pay for it? At what point you decide that having more profit for a company is more efficient than saving some homeless person's life? How do you even objectively measure that?
Same for education.
Your opinion that people are fundamentally corrupt is just your opinion. I am not discussing points of faith here. I am more of a humanist myself, though.
Though it is interesting how you simultaneously say that people are fundamentally corrupt, but still want to maintain their ethical and moral freedom - which inevitably helps them be even more corrupt.
Also you really cannot in the same breath tell me that there is no optimal system and that it is always better to have capitalism. This is a pure logical contradiction.
Post a Comment