Atlas shrugged was the visionary fictional book, becoming one of the most read books in the World. She describe a strike of the most productive people who refuse to be taxed and leeched on making the system collapse. The ideas of the book form the basics of the Objectivist philosophy. But nothing what described in the book ever happened in large scale, despite taxation and general leeching has increased greatly since Rand typed in her words. My time in TEST and my removal from there for posting (no one even accused me of doing anything wrong outside of that or claimed that I slack as practically didn't miss a stratop) the most successful EVE alliance gave a clear answer why.
What makes them so perfect employees? Their sociality. Let's check back to the Theory of Trade of Fun. Time is money, in EVE it's about 100M ISK/hour for an established player. Assuming they do 1 hours of work a day for TEST, they'd be 3B/month richer if they'd quit doing unpaid work for TEST. But they traded this money for fun: they are "socially relevant", meaning they can speak on the forum without being flamed, they get their own ass-kiss threads (seriously, people start threads "callout R: I just want to say that R is the most awesome guy in TEST" with such words. There is a reason why it's called "circle-jerk" even among members). No it's not power, my favorite "trolling" was asking some trivial political question and then making fun of them for having no clue as the leaders did not even bother to inform them of the decisions, they learned it from EN24 or Dotlan like you. They are like Kim Kardashian in TEST, powerless but famous. They are clearly happy about this. They won't quit and they would never steal as the ISK has no value in their eyes, just the "love" they get on the forum.
The core problem is that the TEST leaders made the completely rational decision protecting the circle-jerk of the functionaire class from the "evil troll", as replacing their whole class by paid employees would be way too expensive and TEST couldn't afford that. Why? Because people don't want to pay to have better management. The amount of support I got after I'm kicked show that many people were happy that someone fought the circle-jerkers but they didn't care for it enough to put their own upvotes/membership on the line. Nor to pay in money or time (by volunteering) to replace the jobs of M, R and N if I troll them out of the alliance. The alliance is permanently understaffed, even with the amazingly high level of automatization. There are "we need more X please volunteer" requests on the forum all over.
Atlas can't shrug because Atlas already shrugged. The selfish and productive ones have left the leadership positions long ago. The people who hold the society on their backs are mostly free-working socials paid by "love" and status. They suck. They are obnoxious (sex scandals left and right). But they are free and reliable. We see it in real politics and even in corporate managements. The politicians spend their own money to be elected and the managers work horrible hours just to "push their career". The reason why management - both real life and EVE - is filled with obnoxious idiots is that they simply outcompeted the non-idiots by working for free, wanting only symbolic social payment. The World is in trouble exactly because they are dumb and mediocre: the bank managers didn't OK subprime loans due to greed or evilness, they did because they honestly believed that the trees can reach the sky. So did the politicians regulating them.
In the real world, there is clear hope that their mediocracy collapses: they simply created too much debt and lead their countries/corporations into bankrupcy. In EVE Online the hope isn't so clear. CFC and HBC will overrun the Galaxy taking every single star systems (when I predicted it half year ago everyone laughed). The miracle of these coalitions is that their huge core corporation makes this obnoxious middle management relatively small and also far from the players. All the nullsec alliances are communist, Goons and TEST just perfected communism by centralization, uniformization and isolation of the functionaire class. Despite I'm criticizing them and I was kicked by them I still suggest you to join them if you want to take part in the nullsec warfare.
While having to keep your had down and your mouth shut is maybe not the best way of living, but people choose that over paying. No alliances have serious paid staff. If you don't pay for it, you don't talk back, you have to take what you get:
As long as I paid, I survived everything. Despite I infuriated R beyond measure, I was instantly saved because 20B is awful lot. Money talks. As soon as I stopped paying (and the obnoxious ones kept paying their 3B/month in worktime) I obviously became nothing but trouble. People warned me that "you can't talk back to these guys" but it wasn't clear to anyone why: not because they are "connected" or "loved", but because they are simply paying more to the alliance (in time spent working), so they are more valuable. The mediocracy of the communist functionaires will not change while people are both poor and reluctant of paying for anything. The alternative of communism has a nasty side effect: you have to pay for your lunch. Most people unfortunately prefer a free lunch, not knowing that such thing doesn't exist. The work of the alliance functionaires isn't free, it's just paid in upvotes, personal cult threads.
However recognizing the communist roots of EVE won't make me leave. I'm pretty curious how events unfold when the game world itself is changed by CCP:
- M, my most busy hater, the one who digged up each and every post I've written, no matter how technical or irrelevant they were, is a reimbursement clerk in TEST. He receives reimbursement requests via the management software, checks the loss report to calculate the value and pays the guy.
- R, my most obnoxious hater, who wished my IRL death countless times is... well, let's say he makes sure that M never runs out of work.
- N, my first hater, the one who hated me before it was cool and before I did any "trolling", fuels towers day and night.
What makes them so perfect employees? Their sociality. Let's check back to the Theory of Trade of Fun. Time is money, in EVE it's about 100M ISK/hour for an established player. Assuming they do 1 hours of work a day for TEST, they'd be 3B/month richer if they'd quit doing unpaid work for TEST. But they traded this money for fun: they are "socially relevant", meaning they can speak on the forum without being flamed, they get their own ass-kiss threads (seriously, people start threads "callout R: I just want to say that R is the most awesome guy in TEST" with such words. There is a reason why it's called "circle-jerk" even among members). No it's not power, my favorite "trolling" was asking some trivial political question and then making fun of them for having no clue as the leaders did not even bother to inform them of the decisions, they learned it from EN24 or Dotlan like you. They are like Kim Kardashian in TEST, powerless but famous. They are clearly happy about this. They won't quit and they would never steal as the ISK has no value in their eyes, just the "love" they get on the forum.
The core problem is that the TEST leaders made the completely rational decision protecting the circle-jerk of the functionaire class from the "evil troll", as replacing their whole class by paid employees would be way too expensive and TEST couldn't afford that. Why? Because people don't want to pay to have better management. The amount of support I got after I'm kicked show that many people were happy that someone fought the circle-jerkers but they didn't care for it enough to put their own upvotes/membership on the line. Nor to pay in money or time (by volunteering) to replace the jobs of M, R and N if I troll them out of the alliance. The alliance is permanently understaffed, even with the amazingly high level of automatization. There are "we need more X please volunteer" requests on the forum all over.
Atlas can't shrug because Atlas already shrugged. The selfish and productive ones have left the leadership positions long ago. The people who hold the society on their backs are mostly free-working socials paid by "love" and status. They suck. They are obnoxious (sex scandals left and right). But they are free and reliable. We see it in real politics and even in corporate managements. The politicians spend their own money to be elected and the managers work horrible hours just to "push their career". The reason why management - both real life and EVE - is filled with obnoxious idiots is that they simply outcompeted the non-idiots by working for free, wanting only symbolic social payment. The World is in trouble exactly because they are dumb and mediocre: the bank managers didn't OK subprime loans due to greed or evilness, they did because they honestly believed that the trees can reach the sky. So did the politicians regulating them.
In the real world, there is clear hope that their mediocracy collapses: they simply created too much debt and lead their countries/corporations into bankrupcy. In EVE Online the hope isn't so clear. CFC and HBC will overrun the Galaxy taking every single star systems (when I predicted it half year ago everyone laughed). The miracle of these coalitions is that their huge core corporation makes this obnoxious middle management relatively small and also far from the players. All the nullsec alliances are communist, Goons and TEST just perfected communism by centralization, uniformization and isolation of the functionaire class. Despite I'm criticizing them and I was kicked by them I still suggest you to join them if you want to take part in the nullsec warfare.
While having to keep your had down and your mouth shut is maybe not the best way of living, but people choose that over paying. No alliances have serious paid staff. If you don't pay for it, you don't talk back, you have to take what you get:
As long as I paid, I survived everything. Despite I infuriated R beyond measure, I was instantly saved because 20B is awful lot. Money talks. As soon as I stopped paying (and the obnoxious ones kept paying their 3B/month in worktime) I obviously became nothing but trouble. People warned me that "you can't talk back to these guys" but it wasn't clear to anyone why: not because they are "connected" or "loved", but because they are simply paying more to the alliance (in time spent working), so they are more valuable. The mediocracy of the communist functionaires will not change while people are both poor and reluctant of paying for anything. The alternative of communism has a nasty side effect: you have to pay for your lunch. Most people unfortunately prefer a free lunch, not knowing that such thing doesn't exist. The work of the alliance functionaires isn't free, it's just paid in upvotes, personal cult threads.
However recognizing the communist roots of EVE won't make me leave. I'm pretty curious how events unfold when the game world itself is changed by CCP:
- CREST API will allow replacing lot of clerks with scripts.
- Fixed POS interface will devalue trust in POS management and lowers the barriers of entry.
- If DUST is successful, it will create serious ISK demand from EVE, making pro-business solutions more profitable
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