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Author Topic: Blame someone else.  (Read 5525 times)
Adam Griffin
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« on: November 06, 2013, 04:12:27 AM »

After this post is published, I'll be de-registering from Atlasia. I have no idea whether I'll stay gone permanently, temporarily, or what. None of that really matters.

After experiencing a terrible night in real electoral politics, piecing together recently some aspects of my actual life and dealing with people in this game who seem to want to start veiled BS on a consistent basis (as opposed to good ol' fashioned straightforward BS; this time, in non-partisan threads for a game perk that I've been providing for what seems like an eternity now), I've asked myself why I'm still doing this. I have no real reasonable answer.

To the most important people in this game, my party: I really wanted to be Chair again. I'm sorry that I don't have it left in me to continue with this silliness. Unfortunately, I think this is the time to exit - I'd never quit while I had a job like that. Nix should be Chair - I think he's the only one who can do it justice from day one at this point. I never really got to take "my break" after June - the need from others kept pulling me back into this game initially, and then I began to enjoy screwing around once again. The reality, however (and any person in party leadership will tell you) is that this crap gets old. I'm sick of having to deal with perpetually misinformed n00bs that are told we're the bane of existence. I don't have the energy (and for this particular aspect, never have had the energy) to pretend that I like or fake conversations with dozens of people through PM to thwart this sociopathy, and frankly, no one in our party ever really waged large-scale PM smear campaigns like multiple people have done and continue to do against us (yet we still whooped and continue to whoop their asses time and time again all across this country).

When this game continues to slide downhill, I won't be around to blame. It's cute how some think that the best and most crowd-sourced structure in the game is somehow the one to blame for its demise. Just because you are not on the inside doesn't mean that we are the problem or that it's one or two people calling the shots. Nah, it could never be the cult that the currently-dormant wolf in sheep's clothing built solely to elect himself to office and collapsed about five seconds after his second term began (and about ten seconds before he went AWOL for most of the term). It couldn't be the people who poured in off-site zombies in order to build pan-ideological cults. It couldn't be fact that two-thirds of the game currently does nothing to define itself save for how it disagrees with Labor's policies. Well, the so-called architect of your problems will no longer be around - grow the f[inks] up and find someone/something else to blame.

I'm tired of dealing with people who are just as shatty as I am but never want to show their actual selves. It for a fun game does not make. This is a simulator. A large number of people in here have the same aspirations and tactics from a broader perspective: stop acting so pious. I always thought being an honest asshule could be fun, but it's not when all of the other asshules want to play faux outrage and keep their faux personas intact. Labor's been the big bad wolf for a while, so lots of younger players don't realize just how screwed up the people who message them consistently from the time they join truly are. They're using you, dum-dums, just like every power player and every party in this game does. It really bothers me that there are people who actively have done this stuff for years and years. Do you ever get tired of using people for magic internet politics?

I'm tired of trying to create an actual ideological atmosphere with policy contrast, only to have proverbial empty suits crap all over it. You're a moderate? Great. Most people in this game are not actual moderates - they play moderates because that's the easy peasy route to get elected without actually having to be loyal to a movement. Hell, some of them are in my (former) party. That's why the center of gravity always leads to centrist parties emerging - too many Miss Independents who want to have it their way and can't be bothered to pick a side (and yes, there are only two). This isn't real life, ffs - stop the moderate hero softcackery and stand for something other than sheer opposition to something else. That's what is killing the game. When reform can't emerge because everybody's crowding around the center with their hands down each others' pants, you get people such as myself, Xahar and others that will consider any action that will stimulate the game and cause something to happen other than a bunch of centrists having mild disagreements on long-solved aspects of economic and social policy.

As far as I'm concerned, Labor won the game given its ideological limits and potential awhile back. When Nix was elected, I'd say. If that wasn't good enough, we just won 3 out of 5 regional seats just a couple of weeks ago, which is the best we've ever done. Two months prior, we elected Xahar, for Christ's sake. The Senate is the most expansive, most stable in terms of cycles and most ideologically similar delegation we've ever had. Definitely not in the same case as the JCP, but we were never trying to be the JCP and never will be. We flipped the dynamic of the balance of power in this game on its head, saying screw the (up until that point) center-left and redefined the balance as the actual left. JCP, Liberal, whatever - it's all the same crap from different eras. The easy route of broad center-leftism that results in relatively easily-accumulated political power. We fought for our victories, and our power always came with a handicap. So be it. It's been a lot of fun. I started out against the odds and helped build - along with several other great people - the best damn political party to emerge from dissolution. That's a f[inks]ing fact. Not only would I wager that we've had more fun, but we've also got more done, organized more effectively and taken the all-too silly aspects of this game with a bigger grain of salt than most can carry. Will it hold? Who knows, but it won't be my worry anymore.

This Progressive Union nonsense is trouble, and sensible veterans across party lines know it. It has nothing to do with the slights that they've given Labor, which is just icing on the cake for some on my side of the aisle. That's why there have been multiple discussions on the cancerous growth and what it'll mean for Atlasia if left unchecked. The Progressive Union's growth, composition and recruitment efforts is indistinguishable from the surge that we saw when wolfentoad started dragging people in from the forum and from outside sources like Stormfront, effectively over-inflating the game. Mark my words: this one and this one will be the Second Coming. I don't think they mean bad and I'm sure they're good kids for the most part, but no one starts out meaning bad in this game - just wait for it. Hopefully, they'll avoid that fate in the game.

It's not just a Labor thing, and I hope that some from the right who privately agree with me will ultimately come forward and call this nonsense out for what it is: a breeding ground for the people who hang around/hold offices in this game for years and years - yet talk about how they don't take it seriously - to cultivate their hordes of buttenbuddies for those elections in which they're totally going to run, on issues that they're totally not going to articulate and with voters that know no better.

I don't see a bright path for reform nor for the left in the near future. Honestly, the members of the actual left can probably help out the game more by allying with the Federalists and cack-blocking the cancer before it metastasizes. The Right knows that it's a threat, too. This is not an ideological issue. You can't fight a force that has no solid base of ideology with ideology. Does the Right want to continue losing prominent players to this force as it grows? I know it doesn't. They'll of course have to fight with themselves: between the situation of a weakened left that allows them to win and the game being eroded by these issues, it may not pan out well for any of you guys. The Right has recently intensified its emulation of the long-standing centrist strategy of pandering to as many people as possible in order to win big elections, but they know that they can't beat the kings on their home court - only when a party like Labor alienates enough of the middle can they win.


So basically, I choose to go out on top. I choose to let go of it all because essentially, I've done everything I wanted to do at this point. I choose to not let the real problems of this game use me as their scapegoat any longer, so that they may be proven wrong in the end. I choose to try to have an actual life this winter. Tongue


"A real pro knows when to walk away."

I genuinely don't have issue with anyone in this game - it just all comes down to how people want to portray themselves. Honesty, it boils down to this: stop acting like Popes and innocent children when you're Terry McAulliffes and Mitt Romneys. I don't carry these grudges outside Atlasia, and I hope that when we run into one another elsewhere, there won't be any hard feelings.


Maybe I'll come back at some point, and maybe I'll too play a softcack moderate hero if that is the case. I figure there'll be some who want to troll or argue with what I've said, but it doesn't really matter to me at this point. Spin it, bicker, banter, try to get a reaction: whatever.

I do have a bag of goodies for those people, though: they know what to go do with them.
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LastVoter
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« Reply #1 on: November 06, 2013, 04:48:04 AM »
« Edited: November 06, 2013, 04:50:48 AM by ProgressiveCapitalist »

Farewell Chairman,

I would like to say that AG is almost solely responsible for building Labor as an effective electoral left-wing party. I don't think there are any other members in the labor party who have the ideological conviction or the patience to do so. After a narrow loss in the first presidential election post-dissolution(the leftgot 35% combined vote) Labor party was in shambles and failed to field any presidential candidates. I don't want to call out our names, but our friend's - Napoleon's sociopathic actions in the past 2 years deserve to be specifically called out,  even in a totally unrelated post, he's basically a step above all other villains. He effectively destroyed the Labor party's official power structures by drafting it's head as his VP(Nathan), after doing some minor baiting of Labor in the Senate during Polnut's terms. It's pretty clear that there can't be two left-wing parties in the game. Shortly after he was elected as president i started working in the shadows with AG to build this party. Eventually we wrote a new Constitution and got elected to real positions. Marokai and Nix were elected as president's, and in Nix's presidency labor could essentially legislate anything it wanted with 4 senators that were from labor party + fellow traveler Xahar, not to mention Napoleon being on the Labor ticket as well. At this point I don't think any of us had much interest in legislating, you can look at Xahar's voting record if you don't believe me.

Above all, I just want to say that all of this wouldn't be possible without AG as most other people would have allied with whatever puppet holder that ws controlling the middle at the time and ended the project, or simply quit before all of this came to fruition.
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Supersonic
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« Reply #2 on: November 06, 2013, 05:56:17 AM »

Bye.
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Enderman
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« Reply #3 on: November 06, 2013, 06:11:29 AM »

Sad Bye Griffin, I hope you come back. You'll definitely be remembered by me in the future as the guy who wasn't scared to run in the IDS. So farewell, I hope that you won't leave Atlas. You were a great guy Griffin, you will be missed.
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Associate Justice PiT
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« Reply #4 on: November 06, 2013, 06:26:11 AM »

     I'll say, you were a good leader, Griffin. Maybe every bit as good as bgwah. I don't know how the Atlasian left will manage without you.

     Your warnings remind me of the situation the country faced when I joined back in 2008. The Atlasian right was dead while the centrist NLC ruled affairs. You would probably include me as being one of those who play moderate, but I couldn't be more serious when I say that domination by those who play host to these bland cults of personality is a truly bleak prospect that we all face.
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TNF
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« Reply #5 on: November 06, 2013, 07:33:31 AM »

Sad to see you go, comrade. But points well made and well taken.
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Fmr. Pres. Duke
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« Reply #6 on: November 06, 2013, 09:28:48 AM »

Goodnight, sweet prince. Sad
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Sopranos Republican
Matt from VT
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« Reply #7 on: November 06, 2013, 10:01:30 AM »

Ugh, this makes me sad. Sad
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Maxwell
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« Reply #8 on: November 06, 2013, 10:07:38 AM »

You frustrated me a lot at points, but I had no doubts about your seriousness and ability as a leader of Labor. We are losing one of the greats.
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Sbane
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« Reply #9 on: November 06, 2013, 10:30:59 AM »

What's interesting is that AG admits Labor's strategy is to cobble together a narrow coalition of true lefties to just get across the 50% mark. And then he and others turn around and criticize moderates like me for joining the federalists and probably thinks I'm a spineless moderate. Well, I am truly fiscally moderate. I think teachers should get merit pay, BART workers need to go back to work and that the top tax rate shouldn't be more than 50%. And yet I go along with a 60% tax rate in order to pass a budget and I am pandering or pretending to be more right wing than I am in real life? As for social issues, I have been absolutely solidly liberal. Just ask TNF.

People like AG ruin this game. Yes, we need partisanship but the rabid way he goes about it is not necessary. I won't be a spineless moderate unlike some others in this thread and truly say what I feel. Good riddance AG, the game will be better off without you.
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Gass3268
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« Reply #10 on: November 06, 2013, 11:04:57 AM »
« Edited: November 06, 2013, 11:11:08 AM by Senator Gass3268 »

People like AG ruin this game. Yes, we need partisanship but the rabid way he goes about it is not necessary. I won't be a spineless moderate unlike some others in this thread and truly say what I feel. Good riddance AG, the game will be better off without you.

I won't be a spinless moderate either and say that AG has done more for this game then you ever have or ever will.
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DemPGH
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« Reply #11 on: November 06, 2013, 11:10:25 AM »
« Edited: November 06, 2013, 11:18:29 AM by Fmr. V.P. DemPGH »

Can you possibly understand that I did what I did not because I'm a sinister sociopath or a pious contrarian or a cancer or an opportunist or whatever else, but because I believed it was right?! It's not "it's the law" yadda yadda yadda, but because I thought I was right. Does that enter into the thought process AT ALL?! I never set out to attack Labor, but if part of the mission is to paint the Labor Party as a besieged band of brothers trying to hold the castle against an army of Vikings, then I really can't give any reasons that would make sense.

And if I had acted in ways that undermined the goals of the administration, I wouldn't have been around. [Insert bad cop motif]. While you cite the fringe that was ready at all times to stage a riot, I can tell you that many, many others sent me notes of encouragement and solidarity across the spectrum. No, not from this cabal who was always ready to riot, but from people who think the game's rules should be respected. And who believed it was in Labor's best interest to return from the fringe. That's what's been feeding all these fires!!!

Besides, when I first came into the game there was a portion of your party who disapproved of me right away, so what would be the point of caving to them even if I wanted to?

I shouldn't have typed that. I want to let this die, but it needed said since the other thread is locked.
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Queen Mum Inks.LWC
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« Reply #12 on: November 06, 2013, 11:11:11 AM »

I will miss you and your GriffGraphs.
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Sbane
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« Reply #13 on: November 06, 2013, 11:12:04 AM »

People like AG ruin this game. Yes, we need partisanship but the rabid way he goes about it is not necessary. I won't be a spineless moderate unlike some others in this thread and truly say what I feel. Good riddance AG, the game will be better off without you.

FACT: AG has done more for this game then you ever have or ever will.

He has done a lot for the labor party. I cannot deny that. Though my main complaint against him is how he goes after people personally. He wants to create a true leftist party and when I don't join that, I am a spineless moderate sociopath or something? Am I supposed to come here and join in the circle jerk congratulating him after he says that about me?

And this is not a dick measuring contest between me and AG. I just quietly went about my job in the Senate. I usually don't really get too involved with the things going on in this side of Atlasia. I never said I did more than AG. I am very glad I was never in party leadership and never had to get involved with the petty partisan politics side of Atlasia. That doesn't appeal to me at all.
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Napoleon
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« Reply #14 on: November 06, 2013, 11:16:34 AM »

I think its fair to blame you. Labor was a personality cult more than anything else, with a merely coincidental ideological similarity among members. The other party leaders didn't have enemies lists or take every opportunity to villify others. The amount of behind the back insults and creepy obsessions with certain people is rivaled only by the long forgotten Wolfentoad, who was rightly called out for his behavior. People will overlook it because you have "redeeming qualities" and I've tried to as well but like sbane said, good riddance. The game has gotten progressively worse as you spread more and more division among the left and turned any disagreement into a personal attack. I look at the way you've attacked people like Scott, or trying to lure Kalwejt to the Labor Party while sharing profanity laced insults about him with Nix in the shadows of the IRC and I can't belp but feel this is the right decision for you.

Thanks for the honorable mention.
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HagridOfTheDeep
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« Reply #15 on: November 06, 2013, 02:39:43 PM »

Eee!
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Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee
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« Reply #16 on: November 06, 2013, 02:46:18 PM »

The problem man is that while you say "this isn't real life, so stop acting like it is", you forget that people, especially on the left, refuse to part with their real life driven political animousities and thus like to treat those they disagree with as evil nutcases who are going to bring about Hitler's second coming or something, in an elections game. Which is what creates the very opportunity for your wolftentoad to arise. "Don't vote for Duke, he is Todd Akin".

Also your expectations regarding the political effect of reform centered politics missed the mark, because it failed to take into account the lessons of history. Such reforms may be necessary but they have always split the left and also the right but to a lesser extent, about how they should be done. A political allignment around reform is thus not going to be one alligned based on issues but pro or anti-insert reform effort. You also have landed squarely in the danger zone for the right, where for 60% of Atlasia's existance, the right has been interwoven (hell it is the right) with the preservation of something that has been, in the eyes of many, irreverently (for the deep concern and reasons for the sentiment) placed on the chopping block for sake of the game. Yet, with so many on the left driven into blood-rage destruction mode by the tea party in real life and failing to leave that at the door, and the noted inability of many people on the left to understand those on the right (beyond them being either stupid or corrupt), it is hardly unreasonable for some on the right have doubt about the intentions and/or practical effects, nor illogical for some of them to think that someone would take the counter-productive step (with regards to the game) of seeking their elimination, which would sure as hell boost competativeness obviously.

We hear all these calls for new thinking on the left but they always stop the minute it requires those on the left to leave their comfort zone.

The real reason the center dominates, is because from a game mechanics standpoint, you have to value you both sides from the pesrpective of the benefit of the disagreement and oppositon driven competition. A domination-centric, ideologue, who is blinded to the motivations of the other side beyond evil or stupidity, would destroy the place whether they intended to or not. You cannot have issues based politics, with a huge reform movement looming over our heads. You cannot have competativeness and not allow for the moderation necessary to produce it. And what the  does a Conservative have to encourage them to participate if the story is always the same with the last 65% victory by the next leftist candidate. The only way to not have that is an aggressive movement to the center or a pan-ideological personality coalition.

I know I am getting sick and tired of the next group of leftists to come around and screw some other group of leftists. There are many over there dissolusioned and no wonder, it seems like who you are getting ed by determines which of the two groups you are in. I find myself excellently possessed with the ability to see the horrible qualities in both sides. And frankly, as I said in one of my speeches, where it counts the both of you actually do take the same things seriously and the same things not. If the crap last winter and spring was so horrible, then why is the courtyard filled with victims from this Summer and Fall? Who no doubt will be next Winter and Spring's perpetrators. You say you want to see an end to the moderate hero circle jerk, well I cannot wait for the day when this seasonal cycle comes to an end. Because everyone has to pick a side and thus the right gets dragged in as well and frankly it is boring, pointless, destructive and rather stupid. Why should it be treated like a game in one sense but not when it comes to expecting better then this? Why should the Federalists pick one side or another in that bullsh**t?

No, I am not happy to see you go, but I felt like you really failed to grasp certain things and/or had some unreasonable expectations based on those things and thus why you are disappointed about the results. You say you have won, but it is pretty hard for the left not to win what you have since water rushes downhill and so the next person who can say the same, with the same constraints, will probably be likewise. I think the other problem is that you have already given up, you have surrendered to accepting the worst elements for whatever reason. I have never pretended to be innocent, I recruited Hamilton into Atlasia and realize that a good part of what he proceeded to do had something to do with various actions I took. It is impossible to go through life without hurting anyone at all, but I can think of nothing more unreasonable then to just accept and to concede to such in a place that is built on voluntary participation.
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FEMA Camp Administrator
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« Reply #17 on: November 06, 2013, 02:54:56 PM »

Godspeed, brother Griff!
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Marokai Backbeat
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« Reply #18 on: November 06, 2013, 05:30:46 PM »

I rejoined Labor just for you, you big jerk. Angry
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TNF
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« Reply #19 on: November 06, 2013, 06:30:58 PM »

ITT Whiners attacking Griffin because they could never beat him
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Fmr President & Senator Polnut
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« Reply #20 on: November 06, 2013, 06:57:33 PM »

Labor would not be what it was and is without you.

Despite being one of those 'moderates' and being legitimately of the centre-left, not the outright left. I accepted that I was on the 'fringe' of my party and that was fine with me. Bgwah's long reign was much more about voter management than it was about a specific set of policies and agendas. Your time as head of Labor, officially or unofficially, was marked by significant voter management and a strong agenda, some of which I agreed with and support, some of which I didn't.

If anything, it was the closest Atlasia has experienced in a long time to a genuine party machine... some see that as a bad thing, I don't see it as good or bad, but it is authentic.
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Sbane
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« Reply #21 on: November 06, 2013, 08:26:43 PM »

ITT Whiners attacking Griffin because they could never beat him

Like I said before, this is not a dick measuring contest.
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Talleyrand
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« Reply #22 on: November 06, 2013, 08:45:59 PM »

As Maxwell stated earlier, we've lose one of the Greats. I can think of but one other person who has contributed as much to Atlasia as you have during my time here. Thanks for everything, Griffin.
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« Reply #23 on: November 06, 2013, 08:50:37 PM »

Sad  Sorry to see you go!  You were one of the few things I actually liked about Atlasia!   
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GAworth
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« Reply #24 on: November 06, 2013, 09:05:09 PM »

You frustrated me a lot at points, but I had no doubts about your seriousness and ability as a leader of Labor. We are losing one of the greats.
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