In Soviet Russia, tetris plays you!

I thought for a long time in which blog to post this topic. After much deliberation, I came to the conclusion that the best option would be a blog about social networks. I want to warn in advance that I am not a certified sociologist, and this article does not pursue personal, selfish motives.

In the vast web, if you search, you can find different social networking experiments. For the most part, they repeat those that have already been conducted live, or they are directed to a strictly rigid framework, which the researchers have established. Most often, the number of respondents in them does not exceed even a couple of hundred people, and the experimental subjects themselves, mostly from one strata. These are awkward, small projects that are of interest except perhaps for those who organized them themselves.

Approximately two, two and a half years ago, I, along with many other HabraHumans, were registered with eRepublik, but unlike the majority who almost immediately (and not unreasonably, I must say) left this business - I continue to accept with different degrees of activity participation in the life of their virtual homeland. During this time I was able to observe situations that are practically impossible to model in real life. I saw fierce pozzreots who shouted something about “Mazarash to Mississippi”, at the moments when their cries were close to the truth, and I saw the same pozzreots who were already shouting something in the spirit of “Nowhere to go, behind us and so already all piled up "when it was true. I also observed how the virtual Balkan "powder keg" increasingly resembled its real counterpart, and how irreconcilable enemies in the real world in the virtual world, without any diplomatic tricks with their ears, became productive allies and partners. If you still do not want to sleep, welcome under the cat, where I will try to describe the most amusing things in my opinion, which took place in my observation.
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First of all, in order for you to have no illusions about this project, I immediately want to start with its shortcomings, which to one degree or another influenced the decisions taken by the participants.

We need to start with the fact that despite all the charms - the project is extremely badly monetized. Although it is actually free, but due to the fact that for a certain amount of real money you can get their virtual counterpart - there are flashes of imbalance. Virtual states in which such flashes occur - for a while become the Mastercard Empires. On the other hand, this imbalance, as a rule, is immediately bogged down, for supporting such an advantage is a very expensive exercise.

Another disadvantage of this project is its support service and developers. Having an incredibly cool idea, they manage to organize new “features” once a couple of months, which strongly tilt the game balance. True, after a while, they usually understand the futility of these sophistries, and roll everything back, sometimes even overdoing with simplification from trying to please the raging crowds, which in turn attracts new popular unrest. Romanian developers do not know the concept of "golden mean". Things are even worse with a support that never responds to suggestions and comments. And if it answers, then in three months. And if not after three months, then by refusal. Another disadvantage is that the mechanics does not provide for other state systems, except for the republic. Also, the disadvantages include a ban on the existence of virtual (in their explicit form) radical, terrorist, and ultra-right organizations that could certainly give a flavor to the political component.



This is where the key flaws end. And, if (for the sake of justice) to talk about the pros, then they can be modestly fit into these theses: about 100k active project participants; availability of virtual prototypes for most real states; lack of constraints on movement between social groups; complete freedom of action and absolute equality between the participants.

So, at the exit, we have a pretty good model of society, with all its flaws, vices, and other flaws.

Like the real world, its virtual counterpart provides for the existence of a vertical of power. Mechanics provides for the presence of such officials as the president, congressmen (deputies, tobish), and party presidents. But, as a rule, the list is expanded by such structures as the army (organized groups of people who mainly devote time to eRepublik to its military component) and ministries (at least - defense and foreign affairs). In more advanced virtual societies, there are huge government offices with their own speakers, treasurers, ambassadors, consuls, and so on.

It would seem that in a virtual world one can easily avoid bureaucracy, corruption, and build an ideal society. The first revelation came to me here, when I could observe with my own eyes how, in the best traditions of the real world, virtual ministries of defense "sawed" their share of the budget, deputies lobbied the "necessary" bills for personal, party, or "paid up" interests, while adults and, at first glance, decent people, in the run-up to the elections, bury their political opponents in the shit.



Fully aware that everything around them is virtually virtual, the collective mind continued to persistently complicate its life. I did not find any intelligible explanations for this.

Without any intervention - the virtual world obediently became bipolar. And despite attempts to organize a “third force,” or, on the contrary, to create a single alliance, everything ultimately boiled down to bipolarity. In the virtual world, there are two superpower military-political blocs: Phoenix GC (PHX) and Erepublik Defense & Economy Network (EDEN).



Both in the first and in the second block there is a complete package of cockroaches. Strict hierarchy, its own orders, and a whole network of performers. Each block has its own leaders, which sometimes change places due to the dynamics of events. If PHX is ruled by Serbia, and partly by Hungary, Brazil, Indonesia, and Bulgaria, then EDEN is ruled by Poland, which has Spain, the USA, and Romania to varying degrees.



The blocks are constantly transforming, as in real life, after a prolonged stagnation - they disintegrate and are transformed into new ones. Each block has its own strong military leaders, and raw material giants. And all this, please note, self-organized without any desire to inherit the real world.
Another funny fact that I discovered during this time is the characteristic influence of the stable intellectual and emotional characteristics of different nations on their behavior within the framework of virtual interstate relations. Generally speaking, every nation fully justifies its social stereotype.

Italians and Ukrainians can start a world war on anyone's side, but they always end up on the winning side in a magical way. Accident? I would not say. And in the first and second countries there is a very delicate balance between the right and the left, which hold power not so much because of their personal success, but because of the world situation as a whole. This state is incredibly annoying to the whole world, but it allows Italy and Ukraine itself (who have never had a strong army or a powerful economy) to keep afloat steadily. “Turks with Muscovites come and go, and girls with wreaths and grandfather with pandora stay forever.”

On the other hand, there are exceptions to the rules, among which are relations between the Orthodox Orthodox Serbs / Bulgarians and Muslims from Turkey / Iran who not only cooperate successfully within one block, but also lease their territories, or even play the role of a transit state to move the first to the Middle East, and right up to the Yellow Sea.

If you try to briefly describe the position of Russia in this virtual world, it should be immediately divided into two stages. Before the publication on Habré of the first article about eRepublik, and after it. At first, Russia was a horde of programmers and advanced shkoloty from an IT resource, which made the administration cry tears of blood. Around this period, the vast majority of serious eRepublik bugs were revealed. The ruthlessness of habrauser such as keks-n - reached the point of complete absurdity when the project creators themselves were forced to ask for cooperation from people from Habr.

Later, Russia was firmly and for a long time established the reputation of the creators of the Rubot, who terrified most of the neighbors who were unable to fight back the mech-resources. But then this trend began to decline, and the already gathering Habralyud community made Russia a fairly strong state, which quickly burst into the virtual world top-5 in terms of basic economic and military indicators. At its peak, it was a state from Copenhagen to Krakow, and from Pennsylvania to the borders of the state of Florida.



During the last expansion, which happened a few months before “Day D” (during the presidency of your humble servant; 3) - Russia occupied Norway, and set up a bridgehead in Denmark. At the same time, on the eastern front, we successfully pushed the entire west coast of North America from Alaska to the occupation of California and access to the Mexican state border.

But, alas, already at that time there was a noticeable tension in Russian society, the outflow of players only intensified after the administration’s feilon inquiries, which together with other factors led to the fact that we could not hold back the simultaneous attack of Poland, the USA, China, Romania, and Finland . The Poles and Americans were the first to strike, first attacking Kaliningrad and the Russian Far East. As they advanced to the war, the Chinese and Finns joined. Then, after long negotiations, Ukraine, due to circumstances, was forced to skip Romania to the borders of Russia, which hit the Caucasus, the Volga, and advanced to the Urals. In the end, in about a couple of days, Russia was completely erased from the map. After a series of unsuccessful uprisings, we were able to return only the Far East, having beaten him from the Americans. And now, for almost a month we have been living on this reservation, with an area of ​​(miserable to say) a measly 6,169.3 thousand km².



About Ukraine and Belarus is not particularly what to write. The first is a relatively peaceful state that dances between two superblocks, the second one appeared on a virtual map just a couple of weeks ago, but the Poles are already sharpening their teeth.

Most of all, Ukraine is known for its rich region “Podolie”, and by the harsh domestic political realities in which people with fine mental organization simply do not take root. There is something in common with real life, huh? :) But here everything is organized in and of itself, by those who blame this real Ukrainian government. Such pies.

In the Balkans, everything is as it should be. The fight between the Serbs and Croats, the “protection” first - of Macedonia, and the claims of Bulgaria to the latter against the backdrop of the cruel bathert of Greece. But this can be attributed to the centuries-old float, which could not but affect the minds of people in the virtual world.

This is approximately the situation in the projection of the real world.

If you found this case interesting, you have ambitions of a cosmonaut journalist, politician, diplomat, military strategist who could not be realized in real life - then you can register in the project by clicking on this referral link (I will be very grateful, but I don’t insist) , or for this - not referral. The same links, but to the English version - en , two . For me, eRepublik is first of all a community, a place where I started a bunch of acquaintances from all over the world, whom I would hardly have met otherwise. Also, the project will be interesting to novice sociologists, or just fat trolls. I remind you to register ONLY in the Far East of Russia, otherwise you will find yourself in the zone of occupation. Here is a short manual for beginners.

Respectfully,
wall painter - Sanbeliver.