Jita Park Speakers Corner

Sorry, my friend died and I spent some time grieving. Since this thread went from reasonably logical to full-tilt poetic stanzei ****** I guess I should get it back on track.



No. You've heard it time and time again from Nullsec dwellers for years now. Nullsec is almost completely dependent on Highsec for virtually everything. Production in nullsec is abysmally understated compared to highsec. Minerals are virtually all imported through a compress/refine process using large guns. Ships, fittings, drugs, reacted materials, fuel products (not all, but a lion's share) are all imported.

The false dichotemy is that there's Highsec and there's Nullsec and that these constitute two different "games" or "experiences." The reality is that there's Highsec that's dependent on CCP to maintain a status quo as regards CONCORD/Crimewatch, Incursions and Mission/LP payouts in order to survive; all things that CCP have been absolutely adamantly against changing in a negative way as would be perceived by Highsec dwellers. Then there's Nullsec that has a completely different ruleset, disparate politics and where 90% or more of the game's narrative comes from that operates outside of the rules/missions/LP/CONCORD concerns of highsec, but is still bound to highsec by the economic dependence of it's markets and industry.



Both and neither. Things that are good for highsec are almost, almost always good for nullsec. The exceptions are when highsec is monetarily advantaged over nullsec. Players in nullsec live (and die) by their ships. The ability to be financially impoverished by the virtue of their participation in bloc warfare is a real limiting factor for most interested but not committed highsec players. Highsec players live by their ships, but they also don't experience risk of loss at near the rate of a nullsec player. There's always some hilarious lossmail every few days where some ignorant mission runner ran his 20b isk proteus into a suicide gank squad or got popped in a mission somewhere. It happens, but the virtue of the glut of highsec mission runners makes those sort of kills prohibitively rare for the highsec ganking groups while still frequent enough to be fresh on the minds of most players.

Incentivizing nullsec for the pilots was something that was brought up in CSM 6 and seems to have died along with reason, logic and common sense in CSM 7. You guys could do well to revisit that idea sometime. if a Highsec pilot can make 80% of what a Nullsec pilot can make in the same period of time there will be the incentive for some more risk-aware highsec people to check out nullsec and see what it's about. However when the current system is to make 1b/hour in FW lowsec, followed by ridiculously good near-zero risk highsec mission botting (congrats on not even making a dent in that, by the way) followed by market botting (thought I'd let you get away with ignoring that too? for shame.) followed some-dozen or so other methods down to nullsec ratting and anom running, which is horrible unless you so it in very specific means (like, say, using carriers).



Nullsec sets your narrative. All of those trailers you put out every 6 months or so; that's nullsec. Full stop. You aren't selling anyone on your amazingly fun and engaging asteroid mining simulator. You're selling people on the political intrigue I create or the chaos my organization sows.

The symbiotic relationship is that I need highsec markets to do what we do. By the same token, by understanding Highsec markets, I can do what we do better. No one else in EVE can make a meaningful cartel like we did. It's likely that no one else is going to be able to completely decimate mining the way we did with the Gallente ice interdiction, and holy **** did we make money on that. So while there's symbiosis from Nullsec towards Highsec, there's very little which Highsec is intimately dependent on Nullsec for. You could argue that moon minerals might fit that bill, but alchemy mitigates that to a large degree.



There's a reason anarchy is a left-wing pipe dream ruling system. Organization will always net a more powerful and influential result than chaos will. When it comes to politics this is especially pertinent.

The answer to your question is no. There's no reason to change the spirit of the current electoral system. We do just fine with what we have as long as we are willing to tell the electorate that they are responsible for the consequences of their votes. CCP have been pretty consistent with this in the past. There's a long list of candidates that had to withdraw or were removed from the CSM to which votes were not transferred and we've got a fair chunk that went unutilized in the last 7 elections due to unwinnable candidates. The answer to those voters is to be more informed and vote smarter.

You said this unironically.

Okay, so this all started because Trebor and Seleene are deathly afraid that we're going to "bloc vote" again and send them packing, so they wanted to come up with this cockamamie transferable voting system so that all the 100 vote anti-goon guys can send them neat little pre-packaged vote gifts because they're the two leading mouthbreathers on the council and I can put a family of apes into enough votes to get them knocked out of "chairman" and "vice chairman" spots.

Now that we've established that: what do you think a voting bloc is? And why would advocating for one in a thread based on another thread that was based on wrecking voting blocs be some sort of novel idea?

We are a political party. We're just not your political party. If you want one, make your own. That's the entire point.

Because I don't advocate voting reform. The system works fine as is.

The time and energy of the CSM and CCP can be better spent trying to find ways to increase voter turnout. There is no one magical way to do this, though.

For the candidates that fear the organizational powe of the CFC, one answer is to form into an opposing political party. Give voters something identifiable, an easily digested message, and a number of candidates in different areas of expertise.

Your corp restricts your freedom of speech? Sounds like a bullshit corp. I take they won't allow you to tell us who is trying to censor you either?

He already said who was censoring him:


E-Uni has always restricted where their members can post and what they can say. Why do you think I was eventually given the "opportunity to leave"? Criticizing the Uni on my blog. My critiques didn't start the moment I left.

Okay, let's play follow-the-leader.

You suggest that "the time and energy of the CSM and CCP can be better spent trying to find ways to increase voter turnout. There is no magical way to do this, though."

Incorrect, I say! Fallacious! Ridiculous! Why, if they would only stop talking voting reform and how-important-am-I nuance and started producing something meaningful for the average EVE player you'd see a wonderful amount of increased turnout, because, hey, "the CSM did something for me!"

I actually wrote:

Increasing voter turnout will require a variety of different tactics/techniques. Maybe if the CSM is seen to be doing something, there'll be some percentage increase in voter turnout. Maybe if more reminders are put in the client, there'll be another percentage increase. Maybe if the entire voting framework were moved into the client, there'd be another percentage increase. Maybe upping the requirements for candidacy, thus lowering the number of candidates, will see another increase. Etc. Etc. Etc.

It's really hard to say why voter turnout increased as it did for CSM7. You argue that it was simply because CSM6 was seen to be "doing stuff." It could also be argued that voter turnout increased because The Mittani is a polarizing figure, and people wanted others in their to lessen his impact (though that comes back to CSM being perceived to be "doing stuff", though in this case not really "good stuff" versus the "wrong stuff.")

Anyhow, it is going to take work on more than one area to see a significant bump in the voting turnout percentage. I think it can be done, but there's no one single panacea.

And all of that herfderf saw the voter percentage increase by ~2.5%, from 14.25% to 16.63%. Wow. You're really onto something.

(What you fail to take into account. Voter turnout for CSM6 greatly increased for the exact opposite reasons. Because CSM5 was completely ineffective and useless. A leader arose and people rallied behind him. Had CSM5 been even slightly effective, The Mittani may not have bothered to rally nullsec. Great success or great failure can lead to increased voters. But you're right about CSM7 ... they've neither any terrible failures or any great successes. They're middle of the road.)

Like I said, it will take more than a single avenue of success (or meltdown where CSM5 is concerned) to boost voter turnout to acceptable levels. Your plan of the CSM having a few wins and being lead by Charisma Man is not going to get voter turnout to the 30-40% range.

More education. More visibility in the client. (Along with an effective CSM.) These will result in higher voter turnout.

They don't care, because they don't know why they should care. That's where education comes into play. Tell these people why they should care, why 20 minutes out of their day learning some basics about the candidates and then voting is in their best interest.