Ryzom

Politics in Ryzom, whatever far they brought it with the OPs and cats mainly, is not touching somebody's real wellfare, happiness and being as in RL that's the beauty of it , as ones mistakes whatever bad, have not dramatical consequences, then the game is much more intellectual.

On the other side, complexity of game filtering the player base quite a lot, the player base cannot be assimilated with huge, urban loosly structured masses of people, a politician deals more with citizens like in ancient Greece, rather than with inform huge masses.

Well my idealist belief is that Internet and other means will bring us back somewhere in the future to being individuals rather than masses but that's SF imagination hehe. Coming back to games, the big (WoW, LotrO and other) raid structures are rejecting me mainly because they make successful only highly pyramidal structured communities, be they guilds or over guild organisations, militaristic ones if you want.

arfindel wrote:I love politics, but in the original sense, in Ryzom too many considered politics sinonim to manipulation, greed, and worse greed for power *sigh*

As the post before me already says, this description of 'pure' politics seems a bit overromantic to me. Politics in it's essence is all about getting what you want through the manipulation of other people. And it has been that way ever since the ancient Athenians invented the word.

Just remember that "getting what you want" doesn't have to mean wealth or power, it can also be peace and justice and equality. And "manipulation of other people" doesn't have to mean underhanded backstabbing; treating people with respect is often the best way to get something from them.

cushing wrote:I can live better with that on Atys than in real life, where you see exactly the same things in so-called politics. Weird about it is that they seem to be less clumsy and more subtle in game than RL.

XD I noticed that too. I do think that seeing how politics develop in a small and limited environment like the Ryzom ingame world, has given me a little more understanding and appreciation for how politics work on a large scale in the real world. There it's about people's real wellfare rather than a bunch of virtual cats, but the principles are still much the same.

arfindel wrote:Politics = art of government of an urban area inhabited by citizens - Greek polītikos, from polītēs, citizen, from polis, city; It's the exercise of citizenship and the art of the city at the same time.

As for myself, I've enjoyed the politics in Ryzom mostly from the position of onlooker. I enjoyed following the developments and discussing them with others, but I did not generally seek to participate in it myself on the level I saw some guild leaders or HOs do.

But as Faa says up there, politics is the exercise of citizenship. Just because I'm not the leader of my own guild or the spokesperson for some iniative, doesn't mean I'm not part of the politics. You're part of the politics just by being in the world and interacting with others, whether you like it or not.

Again, just like in the real world. Everything you do reflects what your values and ideals are, and has the potential to subtly change the opinions of those around you. You're just one person amidst thousands of others, but each of them is ultimately just one person who can only choose for themself. Your actions matter at much as anyone's.

And I also share the idealistic hope that more and more people will realise that, rather than thinking nothing they do matters because 'the government' will decide anyways... but I don't want to turn this into a RL political debate. That's interesting about raid games encouraging strict command structures though, I never thought about that...

Anyways, my point was just that in that small way, I have much enjoyed participating in the politics on Atys.

cushing wrote:Of course, persuasion, rhetorics and (especially) propaganda often are simply used to cover and hide "manipulation, greed, and worse greed for power".

Bah you started me, sorry for long post, just felt like sharing some thoughts, ignore it if it's too much bla bla (give me a pick and I'll shut down fast lol).

Manipulation and persuasion are two different things but among which there's a confusing area of shared methods.

Manipulation, in my eyes, represents making your opponent do what you want regardless of his own desires and interests.
Persuasion is attempting to make the opponent see your point of view and adhere to it while pursuing his interests and desires.

Manipulation wants you to forget your interests and desires.
Persuasion wants you to adopt a different way to reach your interests and desires.

Manipulation asumes you are less intelligent than your manipulator.
Persuasion asumes you are the same intelligent as your interlocutor only you can be given new data or new interpretation of data.

Manipulation can use rhtoric in all the ways, including deceiving and lieing. Persuasion uses logical structure of rhetoric, it builds demonstrations like you do to prove a new theorema.

In short Manipulation is built on a selfish presumption, while Persuasion is built on a community good one (community might just mean you and me in this context). Manipulation comes from a power position, persuasion builds on a peer to peer position.

We are using persuasion on a daily basis. When we teach our kids to eat with a fork we are persuading them, when we make them read we're persuading them, when we kindly ask our colleague to close a door we're persuading him. Any single word that makes somebody else do something he would not do otherwise is persuasion.

Manipulation versus persuasion can be easiest seen in advertising. Old advertising is a lot based on manipulation. When I tell you my product is the best in the world I blatantly lie (I cannot possibly even know it's the best, or not, and I don't care) modern advertising bets you're cleverer than that and tries by different means to _convince_ you my product is the best.

Manipulation has no limits. Whatever your interest or desire is it can be the subject of your manipulation. Persuasion has boundaries in your object. What I mean: you cannot persuade somebody(object) it is good to jump from a 99 floor window, but nothing can stop you manipulate him to if your desire is that (subject).

The boundaries blurr when it's not clear if your object's desires and interests are coinciding with yours.

Example: I desire my object to work harder for less money. This will be in my interest (manipulation) but can be in the general community interest too and then, later, in his interest as well (persuasion).

Then I can identify manipulation from persuasion only based on the emitent intentions. But intentions are an emotional, interior level; we cannot possibly know 100% what's in a person's mind and conscience.
That's on the spot. Later, when we start knowing the whole context, we can infere much more about these intentions.

If we're in a postwar time when somebody preaches us about working together more for less money, then maybe the preacher is trying to persuade us for our all better good. If we're in a flourishing time when our work only makes his wallet fatter, then probably he tried to manipulate us.

But at t0 when the speech is done we can easily take manipulation for persuasion and vice versa because we lack context defining data.

P.S. Edited because I gave the wrong quote

I see, we simply have different definitions then.

To me, to persuade someone means to change their mind. To manipulate someone means to (try to) get them to do something you want.

One possible thing you can want someone else to do, is to change their mind. Thus manipulation is a method that you can use to archieve persuasion.

I admit the word 'manipulation' usually has a negative meaning, in all the ways you describe. But it doesn't have to be negative. Think about giving a long heartfelt speech that basicly just comes down to "pleeease?". That's manipulation too.

What defines manipulation to me is that it doesn't use logic and reasoning. Any way to persuade someone other than using logical structures, is manipulation. We all manipulate on a daily basis, and mostly without evil intentions.

The thing is that manipulation can be used for evil intentions. A thruthful account of facts and logic can't be, that just is.

But manipulation isn't bad in itself, it all depends on how it's used. It's a tool that can be used for good or for evil. The word for "evil manipulation", one that uses lies, that assumes the object is less intelligent, that tries to persuade them to do something against their own interests, is 'deception'.

Oh, and advertising is forbidden from using blatant deceptions now, but it's still all about manipulation. It's just more subtle about it now.

You're right, I am using "manipulation" as opposed to "persuasion" only in a bad way because of its etymology. Handling somebody as if it were an object implies the idea of puppet, the idea of power aso.

I believe you made me realise this has a little to do with my background: Being native in a latin language manus is more obvious to me as handling (in romanian hand=mânã, manipulation creates a clear image of puppet use in my mind then).


===
manipulation
c.1730, "a method of digging ore," from Fr. manipulation, from manipule "handful" (a pharmacists' measure), from L. manipulus "handful, sheaf," from manus "hand" (see manual) + root of plere "to fill" (see plenary). Sense of "skillful handling of objects" is first recorded 1826; extended 1828 to "handling of persons" as well as objects. Manipulative is from 1836; manipulate is from 1831.

I predict I will be back, causing some cuddly havoc and mindblowing mayhem one way or the other in some way or form or the other.

Kinda missing you all..

Heeeey Bereeeeen !!!! *GLOMPS Beren*
*Beren activates macro:*
Little fluffy tryker down!! Come to rescue!
*Keiko hears, runs to help, and... buff Beren is glomped again*
*Beren activates macro:*
Little fluffy tryker down!! Come to rescue!
*Icenn hears, runs to help, and... buff Beren is glomped again*
*Beren activates macro:*
Little fluffy tryker down!! Come to rescue!
... to be continued...

Ha ha ha, good times!

Not been too far away, I might even be getting my connection back soon, like I promised 6 months ago.. lol

Hope to see you all soon

Yay Beren!

I was gonna glomp you, but Faa already did it for me!

So, I'll give you nice, safe huggles instead!

*huggles Beren*