Invitation to all anarchists, politics-interested people, gamers and philosophers: Join my experiment!
I have here (on steemit) read a lot from self-announced anarchists and from people that have contradictory views on politics then I have myself. That is one reason why I like steemit. It is so anti-bubble.
However, I also found that some of these people either have a vastly different understanding of what “government” means or follow a line of thought that is simply unintelligible to me.
To change that I had the idea to a small (well, quite big to be honest) experiment, right here on steemit. You know, unique content, lots of fun and even more insight, such stuff ;)
The Experiment
To better understand the philosophical and political ideas I propose to make a “fresh start”. We will make a model of a settlement and everyone gets a chance to be involved, to make practical decisions on the situation and in such show their views in a more clear way.
Imagine that: There are 100 people and an area of 100 square miles (Actually there is no “real” size, but calling it miles is easiest way).
You can see it a bit like a computer game of Sim City or Settlers or Banished or even Civilisation - if you know those you know the concept. The experiment will also include role-play and economy, but first the basics.
This area is build as follows in the picture:
We have a river in the center (for game purposes you can cross it easily). On the upper left corner is a horde of horses (yes, no cars in the game). The upper right has a little forest.
The lower part of the map has stone on the left and iron ore on the right.
The production rules are as follows:
Each normal (grassland) square can (and will “automatically”) produce one item of food per turn.
Horse areas can produce one item of horse or one item of food – but if you opt for food, you cannot produce horse (you killed a lot of them ya know?).
Iron and stone squares do not produce food but only iron or stone.
Forests can produce either one item of wood or half an item of food.
River areas produce 1,5 units of food, but can be flooded (no food and maybe worse harhar).
Food consumption:
Every person (P) uses at least 0,5 units of food. If no food is eaten the P dies.
People with 0,5 eaten food cannot trade except for food and do not regenerate AP (Action Points).
P with 1 food eaten regenerate 1 AP.
P with 2 food eaten regenerate 2 AP (maximum).
Maximum storage of Horse is 5. Maximum storage of food is 10. Anything else is 20. (All per mile)
Every P starts with 3 stored food.
Action points (AP)
Every AP can be used to trade (/carry) or to increase production by 0,5 or to build something (may need more then 1 AP).
You can instantly trade up to 3 units for one AP (e.g. 2 food for 1 stone) or 5 units for 2 AP. You can trade until storage maximum for one more AP for carrying, but carrying takes a whole (next) turn where you cant use AP.
There may also be other actions that require AP. Every P starts with 1 AP.
A Turn
A turn is defined as the time between 2 of my posts of this experiment. It will be at least one day but is more or less open end until we finish the discussion about the proposals.
Players (YOU!)
Players can choose anyone of the inhabitants numbers 1-50. Please include your number in every post your P does something. (And yes, you have to stick to your P number, that’s life after all!)
I will be the Game Master and control numbers 51-100. I have already given those some “hidden” traits that I will take out to put you, the players, in front of decisions how to deal with a certain situation.
Every player can make one in-game proposal each round in the town hall meeting and also use all(!) AP. (Out-of-game or meta-proposals of course don’t count, thinks like “We need to be able to build horse wagons”.)
A word on the Game Master, that is me: I have the final word. If you make a proposal that you find a forgotten nuke and press the button and kill everyone I will likely decide that this was just a dream and unfortunately you didn’t kill everyone. Bummer.
Oh, and at least for the start I will limit the existence of guns (token for any meaningful weapon) to Ps 51-55. See the nuke business.
Of course each of the rules can be changed if we agree that this is better for the game/experiment.
Invitations
To make this experiment as interesting as possible, we need a wide variety of cast, so I especially invite (in the order I found them in the timelines):
@papa-pepper
@adelja
@sirwinchester
@steemit-health
@dwinblood
@boxcarblue
@everittdmickey
@moon32walker
@whatageek
@ausbitbank
@countryinspired
because they somehow fall in the target “demographics” I mention in the headline. Sorry if I surprise you with this ;) I hope you will find this as interesting as I hope it will be.
Feel free to ask questions about the experiment.
And now: You have arrived at the promised, untouched land. 100 People are looking at you (well 99 because there is no mirror), and what is YOUR first proposal? Will you declare yourself king above all others or…?
As an anarcho-capitalist, I would have to be able to trade the land and buy or sell more squares ....
There is no rule atm that prevents that... although nobody has anything to trade with except the 3 starting food.
If you want to participate choose player number between 1 and 50.
You can then e.g. put up a proposal that the miles should be distributed by buying and selling. But keep in mind that at this start nobody owns (or even has set foot on) ANY of the squares.
Game seems complicated and long for this kind of medium, but I got to say it is intriguing, let's see how this will play out. What are the winning conditions? What is the point of us playing other than to satisfy your mad experiment? :)
Winning condition is the same as real life!!
Well, if you want to be paid for your role in this mad experiment you can certainly put up a proposal for getting that strange thing named steem ;)
If this goes on for a while I certainly will give the steem from the posts to the regular players.
Complicated. Yeah I know. I had 2 versions, one without (the bulk of) the economy, but I guess that would take out a lot of the core points of politics, right?
No need for monetary incentives, I was just wondering what is the end goal and fun of it. This seems like numbers and resource management game with no fantasy elements attached to it. There are no clear rules, it would be based on your game master plan. I guess that would be the fun of it :)
The most fun is finding out how the people react with and to each other. Or things that happen.
Character creation time :) Human, male, loves horse riding and his name is P32! Starting location B1.
https://steemit.com/experiment/@lennstar/the-experiment-turn-1
This is ambitious! Good luck in filling up the game with players, I don't think I'll have quite enough time to participate in this round.
You can always join up later, there are 50 Ps to take. As long as nobody and nothing kills them :D
Part of how anarcho-capitalism would work (IF it would work) would be the idea that what I do with my land could not be limited as long as it didn't infringe upon on the nearby land owned by others. You have created rules for what can and cannot be done which is necessary for making a game. Yet these rules are similar to the rules a government/state would be able to impose. I realize why you are doing this as the rules for the game would be truly likely way to complicated in terms of the multitudes of different choices people might be able to pursue.
Can I for example grow food on my land, work on getting a clean water source, and build a shelter? If I can do those things then I at least could survive on my land.
Right now it is unclear if this is possible. Then can I grow more food on my land than I need. If I can then that gives me something to barter with other people for.
As I am unclear how the water might come into play I'll choose G6 for your game, but flood conditions and other things are unclear. Does it have an annual flood like the Nile, can I dig a well for water on another square not near the river, is their running water.
This will not really explain anarcho-capitalism, though it will be a fun game, because the limit to possibilities is something artificially imposed and such limitations can make it so it wouldn't work.
I used to play a lot of M.U.L.E. which your board reminds me of. :)
What is the importance of shelter?
How much space is required for shelter?
How can I acquire and claim more land?
For the last 3 lines those things I intended to introduce step by step, depending on what happens. In your example it could be:
There is a flood and all food in the river regions has rotten.
Everyone living there has to get food - which way ever.
How will the people react? Will there be theft (or at least the attempt of), will others help? If yes how? Everyone single? Or via a committee? Via "taxes"?
What if the "tax is theft" people do not pay their share of the tax? Will they get murdered in their beds by "commies"?
Everything is open to imagination.
So will your proposal in this first turn be:
We need land distribution rules. The rule is: I grab G6?
Oh, I forgot: If you look at the AP rules you see you can grow more food, since food is also production ;)
Well I need food right? So I need some place to get food. If I can survive a turn without any food, shelter, etc then securing land for food would be my first step. so I'll grab G6 as my first preference but could settle for G5, or G7 if there is contention.
https://steemit.com/experiment/@lennstar/the-experiment-turn-1
M.U.L.E. sounds intersting ^^
It is old... but was a great deal of fun. You can play a remake of it for free at planetmule.com
I'll take H1. I think it's available. I'll hold my comments until this gets started and I have a better idea of how it works.
https://steemit.com/experiment/@lennstar/the-experiment-turn-1