Scouting is an Act of War - Are your friends your enemies?

Let's face it, the current police state is kind of scary - but what I am going to focus on todayis the totalitarianism currently being put on people in America by each other through unhealthy social norms.

I play a game on my Iphone called "Game of War: Fire Age." And in this game, if you scout someone (in order to figure out their troop strength or whatnot) there is an unwritten rule that this is an act of war and it can result in punishment for weeks straight as the alliance you scouted will hit you hard for it. There is a lot of fear surrounding the idea of scouting someone.

In other games, they can be so totalitarian that it seems like players expect you to be a perfect player RIGHT AWAY without any help from other players in learning the game, to the point where it is not possible to meet the expected social norms, nor is it possible to learn how to be a better player because people (stupidly) think that people are able to learn without sharing information.

This is very, very inaccurate. People who are afraid to ask questions end up stupid, and society that doesn't teach ends up worse than barbaric. Even barbarians share knowledge with each other.

This used to be a relatively unusual trend in gaming, this masochism and sadism, which I will also give an example of in Magic: The Gathering. In Magic, I often ask to see someone's deck in order to help them, if they are a new player, learn how to build a deck better or to gather information in general to make me and others in our play group better players.

In my opinion, it is a necessary part of the human condition to be able to trust each other enough to grow as a group by sharing information. For thousands of years, information has been shared in the form of libraries, universities, friendly discussions, you name it. It was considered paranoid and delusional to hide your information and keep it to yourself, even from your friends and with good reason - what kind of friends are those that betray one another?

Television shows like "Game of Thrones" and "House of Cards" are not supposed to depict everyday living situations for common folk - but what I see depicted in the gaming community seems to be moving on towards regular society.

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One factor of a police state that is not determined by the police, and is, in my opinion, the scariest factor is how much do the people trust each other? The society we are becoming is one where everyone wants to hold each other accountable and is willing to turn each other in for anything they can.

Forget having an honest conversation with your neighbor, you might tell them something that they will subsequently use against you - and if you do tell them that, it is your fault for being careless - in fact, it may be your fault for being flawed in the least bit, and you deserve punishment - even for something that is minor, even for something that is actually positive for oneself and society, yet frowned upon.

That is because we are now all criminals. Not only in the sense of the police, which we are (as the laws have grown to the point where every single one of us risks being jailed or punished without due process at some point in our lives) but we are criminals to each other.

Paranoia rules these seas as much as it ruled the seas of sand on Dune.

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I am looking up articles on paranoia in order to give some new reading material besides what I am posting in the O.P. As you can see in the following quote, businesses in the past conducted open discussions in off hours that benefited everyone involved because it allowed for companies to share information - without this sharing, some things may have never been invented. It is a culture that is normal for bright people.

I recently spent time in the Silicon Valley, where the gossip is about technology. It is impossible to visit anyone or any place without somebody offering rumors about products, companies, executives or trends. Employees of different companies constantly communicate.

Firms regularly conduct job interviews with employees of competitors, which can either be sincere or attempts to extract information. Companies have used such tactics for years.

But this is changing. Even though this quote says that the companies are "losing billions of dollars according to experts," my opinion is that without brainstorming between companies, many of them never would have even gotten to where they are today.

U.S. companies, experts say, are losing billions of dollars due to domestic and international espionage. Expect companies to continue to tighten internal security and put greater emphasis on loyalty oaths. Expect violators to be prosecuted for infractions. Expect ethics to be discussed more frequently.

Gro wing Paranoia in Business

There was a recent lawsuit by Apple against various other smart phone operators in order to nail them for copyright infringement for things such as "Slide to Unlock" feature.

What I find unreasonable about this patent is that it patents something intuitive, therefore taking it away from others who would naturally have thought of the idea. If I think of riding a bike to the store instead of driving because I want exercise, can I now harass my friends in a harsh manner when they do the same because they "stole" my idea?

How totalitarian is our grip on information getting, something that we have never seen this ridiculous in human history?

Apple Uses Slide-to-Unlock Patent in Lawsuit

Imagine being killed or stoned to death in the past for sharing knowledge or teaching a skill - that would only be something pertaining to the darkest cults.

Life there is fast becoming like life used to be in the ussr and east germany where rule of thumb was trust no one as they were likely to report you to the kgb or stasi ...

Things will get worse unless people stand up to the state now .. unfortuneatly that wont happen .. sell out freedom for security and lose both ..

a reply to: darkbake

Good words, good words. But what if the healing we need comes from the words of the God in the old Testament. "I am that which I am". What if we are all that which we are. What if forgiveness takes acceptance of the fact that we are all flawed. What then?

Then reality. Don't be afraid. Be yourself. Carry on.

PEace!
Me

a reply to: tridentblue

We are all flawed, that is how dangerous this situation could potentially get. People could expect each other to meet expectations that are not possible to meet, and then start punishing each other for it.

a reply to: Expat888

This study is definitely relevant because my life experience is one where I have been unable to find steady employment after graduating college so far, so this article could be describing my own bias.

On the other hand, the article does show a correlation between not being able to support oneself in a stable manner and individualism out of fear -

Something that could come into play with a bad economy. And the other article I linked to said that this attitude of paranoia was increasing in top businesses, as well.

New research being presented by sociologists from the University of Virginia suggests the decline of stable, well-paying jobs is having a significant impact on Americans’ attitudes toward marriage and starting a family.

The study, presented this week at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association in New York City, also found major differences between individuals with and without a college education when it comes to making major life decisions.

“Working-class people with insecure work and few resources, little stability, and no ability to plan for a foreseeable future become concerned with their own survival and often become unable to imagine being able to provide materially and emotionally for others,” said study author Sarah Corse, an associate professor of sociology in UVA.

Working Class Marriages Declining with Job Stability

World War II
Secrecy posters








A more modern one.

A police officer standing guard outside the unit where the Duchess of Cambridge is giving birth accidentally showed off a confidential briefing note in full view of hundreds of cameras.

pinterest.com / about two years ago

Now the press teaches everyone for us.

Be careful what you say, and who you say it to.

Myself, I can't be bothered. I focus my efforts on saying what I mean, and meaning what I say. If this makes anyone uncomfortable because I'm too open, at least I know I'm being understood.


Mike Grouchy

a reply to: mikegrouchy

It's a lot better to live that way, Sir. Thanks for the photos. It is probably a lot more comfortable trusting people and being open than being paranoid! Even if there are some repercussions here and there. I practice being honest, direct and polite but never deceptive or indirect and the like.

In my opinion the deceivers, or as most know them the secret keepers, have already started to eat each other.

Television viewership has crashed, more people stream shows than watch them, the channels are being sold to infomercials in the off hours, and advertisers are sieging the internet. Political donors are looking for anonymous avenues, and authorities fear internal investigations more than any crime or failure.


Those television channels. The old ones. That actually belong to We The People, but were sold to corporations on the caveat that one hour a night be dedicated to news. When they all went digital. Don't they all require special decoders now? So in effect our own frequencies have been encrypted against us, and we have to pay to see them.

Our goddamn frequencies. Being charged against us. Transmitted by a nation wide network of microwave transmitters, cooking our atmosphere. They are literally eradiating our cities with secrets. High speed digital code, diced up, mixed together, and simulcast twelve conversations deep. But who cares as long as we have 4 bars of signal strength. Right?

And since the telcom companies are a very powerful lobby, have been in bed with the signal service since the war, and controls the waves of communication, hardly does anyone even hear about the great microwave oven our cities have become.

Even our judicial system is more interested in _how_ information was obtained, and if it is admissible than exonerating the innocent.

/sarcasm

But hay who cares about global warming right! It has nothing to do with cell towers, its all the fault of those red necks and their trucks! Who's with me!

/end sarcasm

The dust was still flowing down the streets of New York City that day,
and I thought to myself,
"now, maybe, we will declassify all the intelligence agencies and find out exactly who they have been pissing off and for how long.

Instead they reinvented the word patriot and passed a new book of laws.

About secrecy.

A whole new book of laws. Ready for just that moment. And a lot of publicity to go with it.

And to this day, some talking heads on the media still dare to call conspiracy theorists un-American.

I can think of nothing more UNAmerican than secret courts and Judges. Like the ones presiding over the NSA's prism operations.


Mike Grouchy

fascist clandistocracy

Fascist: a bundle of rods containing an ax with the blade projecting, borne before Roman magistrates as an emblem of official power.

clandestinus -a -um secret , clandestine; Adv. clandestino.

cracy: French -cratie, from Old French, from Late Latin -cratia, from Greek -kratiā, from kratos, strength, power

This is about open society vs closed.

In other words Terrorism cannot be fostered where an atmosphere of mutual distrust does not already previously exist.


Mike Grouchy

Trust vs. paranoia: I think you raise a very salient point, here, with this.

Whether gaming, or the corporate world or your job at a fast food place, it boils down to the same issues. And yes, nothing can happen in any forward motion endeavor while we're all busy suspecting one another, of whatever…..

But how to fix that? That's the 64 million dollar question. And there aren't any easy answers, for being "awake," I think, and knowing what's passed before and how disengenuous it was, the conspiracies of silence or outright lies that attenuate that, cause a very certain perception of no one is to be trusted.

I am thinking now of the phrase during the Bush era, of, "if you see something, say something." Really, in a way, that is encouraging us all to inform on our neighbors, etc. What does that even mean? What something merits saying something, and to whom? Do you trust LEOs enough to say something, and then you must think if you speak in that way, what can you then expect from your own neighbors, and their level of trust with you?

These are excellent questions, if we are to move forward in any real way, and not just respin the same old same old…..

Really like your threads, in general, btw, and this is one of your best, in terms of all the conditions it raises, IMHO.
Thanks.
Tetra50

The trend has continued apace for at least fifty of my 68 years...probably much longer....
The individual has lost the family.....the anchor....the bosom of youth where one traditionally learned to trust.....and more important...to BE trustworthy.....
Without the primary loyalty to family.....the young had to find other group loyalties.............
With the amoral pursuit of wealth thrust to the fore, and the real reason for struggle (nessessity) becoming obfuscated
behind it.....trust has become a rare and endangered quantity out there.....
The progression has been fostered by what I believe is a deliberate agenda.....
Whoever is in ultimate control is altering the human personality with an eye to maintaining their stranglehold on us while altering humanity in ways that facilitate tighter controls and restrictions....

A year or so ago I remember I wanted to try to play this WWII-based browser game, don't remember what it was called, where you build bases and whatnot as well as armies. I was still a relatively piddly little base, and I remember this guy scouting my base, so I used diplomacy. I told him that he didn't want to attack my base because I had flying monkeys and all this stuff, none of which was actually in the game, and apparently he thought it funny enough to leave me alone. He actually offered an alliance I believe, lol. I just thought I would share since it is related.

originally posted by: stirling
The trend has continued apace for at least fifty of my 68 years...probably much longer....
The individual has lost the family.....the anchor....the bosom of youth where one traditionally learned to trust.....and more important...to BE trustworthy.....

Whoever is in ultimate control is altering the human personality with an eye to maintaining their stranglehold on us while altering humanity in ways that facilitate tighter controls and restrictions....

This is what I think as well. I think that one reason the church and the family are being decimated is to reduce trust and places to turn for help besides the government. At any rate, that is what it does.

How does a society defend itself when no one has anyone to turn to when they are in pain or trouble?

a reply to: JiggyPotamus

Sweet, that sounds fun ! Glad to know there is still fun out there!

I saw the title and thought 'Thank you"

I wanted to reply to this sooner but had other things to do. I'm pretty interested in the social between people in games, it gives me a lot of justification for perspective on how pathetic humanity is.

I like that you related this to games, I'm quite a talented gamer, though I'm pretty picky about what I play... I find most games to be crap. I also happen to have a bit of education regarding game design with several degrees relating to it. Additionally, I'll spare the resume but suffice it to say usually end up in the top 1% of players of any game I play. At times I have supported myself financially purely from my ability to game.

I apologize for breaking it into a million quotes but there's a lot I wanted to say.

originally posted by: darkbake
I play a game on my Iphone called "Game of War: Fire Age." And in this game, if you scout someone (in order to figure out their troop strength or whatnot) there is an unwritten rule that this is an act of war and it can result in punishment for weeks straight as the alliance you scouted will hit you hard for it. There is a lot of fear surrounding the idea of scouting someone.

A couple years back I played a game called Ikariam. It was a similar game but browser based at the time, the genre has since evolved to phones. Ikariam surprised me because players acted different in it, players accepted that PVP was a natural aspect of the game and the game built up organizations that had policies when outside players could attack their members. The guilds in that game encouraged aggressiveness.

In most games the guilds try to discourage aggression which causes one aggressive group to come to dominate everyone else. It's not really much different from the groups back in Ultima Online back in the day where you had the pacifists, the PK'ers, and the anti PK'ers. In modern day browser games these same groups form. We even apply these same groups to politics, especially in a two party system. The pacifists are those who accept the state without much opinion, the PK'ers are those who seek to change the state, and the anti PK'ers are the state. Who often enough are seen with respect by the pacifists.

In other games, they can be so totalitarian that it seems like players expect you to be a perfect player RIGHT AWAY without any help from other players in learning the game, to the point where it is not possible to meet the expected social norms, nor is it possible to learn how to be a better player because people (stupidly) think that people are able to learn without sharing information.

This happens because these games tend to be zero sum. If one person gains resources another person loses resources. Players are trying to maximize their own benefit so creating a justifiable situation in their own head where they can take advantage of another person, results in these cultures. You should know how to play, without getting play experience. Sounds a lot like needing experience for a job, but no one being willing to provide that experience doesn't it?

This used to be a relatively unusual trend in gaming, this masochism and sadism, which I will also give an example of in Magic: The Gathering.

I don't play MTGO but I do play in paper, they tend to have a good community from what I've seen personality wise... though hygene leaves something to be desired.

It was considered paranoid and delusional to hide your information and keep it to yourself, even from your friends and with good reason - what kind of friends are those that betray one another?

If you view the world as a competition for resources it's pretty easy to make the leap that knowledge is power, which means unshared knowledge gets you more resources. Masons, tradesmen, etc both present and past have their entire profession wrapped up in this idea that more demonstrated loyalty gets you greater knowledge and greater rewards.

One factor of a police state that is not determined by the police, and is, in my opinion, the scariest factor is how much do the people trust each other? The society we are becoming is one where everyone wants to hold each other accountable and is willing to turn each other in for anything they can.

This is because people are judgmental and create an us vs them mentality. Your family is "us", their family is "them". Your family is good people, that other family has different customs... they're not the same, so they're bad. When times are good we ignore this. In a world of a police state though, people turn on each other fast. To relate this back to your iPhone game, it's full of people that all want the same thing... gather resources and advance. Yet different organizations will distrust each other or attack each other simply because they're a different group. This same mentality we play games with that can create guilds, guild wars, etc... is the same psychology that gives us racial slavery and the holocaust.

But this is changing. Even though this quote says that the companies are "losing billions of dollars according to experts," my opinion is that without brainstorming between companies, many of them never would have even gotten to where they are today.

One of the games I played to the top was EverQuest, a MMO about guilds, large raids, and secret tactics. The worst "crime" you could commit in that game was get caught leaking raid tactics to the other guilds. Even once technology advanced and raid targets became instanced the glory, prestige, and access to better loot than the other group was enough to discourage cooperation.

What I find unreasonable about this patent is that it patents something intuitive, therefore taking it away from others who would naturally have thought of the idea. If I think of riding a bike to the store instead of driving because I want exercise, can I now harass my friends in a harsh manner when they do the same because they "stole" my idea?

Many patents are something intuitive. Know why Magic was so successful when other games weren't? They patented the idea of tapping a card. Besides the language they had a patent (it just expired early this year) on physically rotating a card to denote an action.

Imagine being killed or stoned to death in the past for sharing knowledge or teaching a skill - that would only be something pertaining to the darkest cults.

Galileo knows something about this. How often have groups even in modern day wanted to stick to the old ways and not embrace something new? Think about the Luddites. The Russian Revolution wasn't all that long ago, they killed all the skilled workers and outlawed the idea of teaching people new skills that would create a new elite class. Even today if you try to learn beyond knowledge relating to your job or hobby you're looked at as a lunatic.

originally posted by: mikegrouchy
In other words Terrorism cannot be fostered where an atmosphere of mutual distrust does not already previously exist.

War happens when both sides are believe they are just. Terrorism happens when diplomacy has failed.

originally posted by: tetra50
I am thinking now of the phrase during the Bush era, of, "if you see something, say something." Really, in a way, that is encouraging us all to inform on our neighbors, etc. What does that even mean? What something merits saying something, and to whom? Do you trust LEOs enough to say something, and then you must think if you speak in that way, what can you then expect from your own neighbors, and their level of trust with you?

See something, say something is the mark of a police state. It encourages neighbors to turn each other in. It's the standing policy in countries like Soviet Russia or North Korea. The real interpretation of it is if you see someone turn them in before they turn you in. We're all guilty of something, it's just a matter of if the cops can find something you're guilty of.

originally posted by: stirling
The trend has continued apace for at least fifty of my 68 years...probably much longer....
The individual has lost the family.....the anchor....the bosom of youth where one traditionally learned to trust.....and more important...to BE trustworthy.....
Without the primary loyalty to family.....the young had to find other group loyalties.............
With the amoral pursuit of wealth thrust to the fore, and the real reason for struggle (nessessity) becoming obfuscated
behind it.....trust has become a rare and endangered quantity out there.....
The progression has been fostered by what I believe is a deliberate agenda.....
Whoever is in ultimate control is altering the human personality with an eye to maintaining their stranglehold on us while altering humanity in ways that facilitate tighter controls and restrictions....

I've never had loyalty to family, I don't really understand it. It's simply choosing the group of people you know because they're like you in some way over the group that's different. I actually see loyalty to family as a detriment to society. Your brother and your neighbor aren't all that different but you're biased towards siding with one of them against the other rather than all working together.

Loyalty to other things well... workers used to be loyal to corporations but no more. Corporations started firing people 2 days before retirement in order to get out of paying pensions and lowering wages. They aren't worthy of loyalty.

Ok, finally have my responses... how I wish ATS still had multiquote.

originally posted by: darkbake
This study is definitely relevant because my life experience is one where I have been unable to find steady employment after graduating college so far, so this article could be describing my own bias.

Something that could come into play with a bad economy. And the other article I linked to said that this attitude of paranoia was increasing in top businesses, as well.

I've come to the same conclusion as that article. Several years ago I recognized that I will never own a home, be able to afford to raise a family, make enough to take a vacation, or be able to retire. These things were all stolen by a corrupt financial system and those in the top 1%. Corporate culture isn't much better, they are bringing back feudalism and slavery. Banks/Corporations today are more powerful than the governments of 1789 and we have a constitution to protect us from those governments. We need a series of laws to create protections against corporations. Current contract law which is supposed to deal with it is woefully inadequate.

the current police state sees all hears all
and sells the info to the highest bidder
after all the nsa etc data goes directly to israel

No one wants to live in a police state surrounded by snitches.

but consider this...

when there's an *event* (school shooting, Boston bombing), people immediately demand to know why-wasn't-something-done and how-could-you-let-this-happen. DHS openly opines 'If you see something, say something'. Fascitic? perhaps. But consider the incident a few weeks ago when a suspicious / concerned woman saw the kid in the storage unit and called John Law. HS student with guns and bombs; *event* prevented thanks to an aware and concerned citizen.

People like me are tasked with protecting the populace, and I'd be remiss if I didn't have my eyes and ears open.
The legit question is, to what degree can someone like me have access to your life? And that's a hard question.