Finger Licking Reply to RGR Interview
VoxHumana
EREPUBLIK Friends,
The bear has been poked.
And the bear is me.
I can understand why my sales pitch for subscriptions in my last article might have fallen on deaf ears. Some of you even cancelled your subscriptions to what I still promise you will be a worthy-to-be-subscribed journal of eLife. I can understand because the subject of that article was a figure of such singular contempt that many of you probably didn’t even read it.
I’m cool with that.
But something happened in the comments section of that article which stirred the deepest part of me. I mean it. The Deepest
Allow me to explain.
We are all alive, behind our avatars.
If EREPUBLIK is like other games, many of the people playing it are beautiful people inside and out. Gamers are awesome people with full lives. I love running into a grown man or woman only to find out that they spend a couple hours each day killing other grown men and women (or better yet, TEENS) in some apocalyptic battle royale.
Those kinds of people make good friends. I hope to bump into a few more around here.
And most of the friends I have, in the middle of all the happiness in their lives, are also familiar with pain.
Some people who play EREPUBLIK struggle with the feeling of not being alive enough in their "lives behind their avatars". Most of us, probably, ache in real life because real life is a weight we sometimes cannot bear.
Others of us might be struggling with delusions of grandeur behind our avatars. We ache because we know that who we really are doesn’t live up to who we wish were were and we lack the equipment to deal with that.
There are at least some EREPUBLIK players who come to these pages as a refuge from struggles with abuse - given or received. Some of us live in the same homes as our abusers. Some of us just keep getting beat up online.
Every. game. we. play.
Maybe the person to whom you just sent a link - a link to a silly article in a silly game - maybe that person just experienced some kind of deep loss in life. Loved ones die for real. We have to bear that weight and sometimes logging onto a silly game is just what we need for a few hours.
Thank Plato, we can.
But it still hurts.
And some of us, because our lives suck pretty bad, bully people online. There are all kinds of real people who play video games.
And all of it is evil in one way or another.
In other words, some of us are here to escape evil elsewhere and we seek refuge in the company of fellow travellers. Others are here to inflict evil because they have been infected by it elsewhere, and because doing so online protects them from the full consequences of their wicked actions. (Pity the ones who are blind to the difference!)
There are many more categories than these two. I’m not trying to fit you, reader, in to my boxes. But these are the two that poked the bear.
Now on to my point.
Did you notice that I just used a word with spiritual overtones? I called a thing “evil”.
Do not blame me for introducing real life spiritual overtones into a discussion about a character in a computer game.
He did that.
I didn’t expect it. Behind my avatar I am a person who deeply believes in Jesus Christ and confesses the orthodox creeds of the catholic church. None of which means a hill of beans to me when I log on as Krapis into a browser game that has a Greek Philosopher as a virtual deity.
I check my religion at the door. Completely.
I don’t play pac-man as if I am a Little Round Yellow Pie-Shaped Crusader for Christ.
Neither am I here to discuss the doctrine of simul iustus et peccator with you.
Believe me, I check my religion at the door.
So if you don’t care about discussing religion, I’m right here with you. I log on here to escape my real life, not relive it in some bizzare second helping of torture. Krapis is a citizen in the realm of the philosophical. He is not a soul.
But when RGR argued in his own defense in this theoretical universe, invoking a deity from the spiritual universe of reality?
“Christian”, he said.
He kind of poked the bear.
A two-week-and-one-day-old citizen cannot and will not argue the merits of the legitimate parts of Ronald Gipper Reagan’s game strategy in EREPUBLIK. I maintain that he is a ‘successful’ EREPUBLIK figure. He has obviously been beaten down from the top tiers of success by people who are playing the game better. Games are harsh when winners and losers are so clearly defined. But there is a form of winning that RGR has done, and that was what my interview recognized. If more of you flourished the level of activity he had, perhaps there would have been many more citizens playing on the day my citizen was born.
Mind you, I am not recommending that you adopt all of RGR’s mechanics.
In fact, the mechanic of invoking his real life “Christian conservative” identity in defense of his EREPUBLIK behavior (not to mention using it as a kind of coup fourré to defend his real life behavior) is the exact mechanic of his that, in a heartbeat, turned me off.
He completely lost me right then and there. Done. Finito.
He had me as at least someone willing to look on his bright side until he did that. His loss.
So if anyone is keeping a thread on the eusaforums called, “Game Mechanics That Don’t Help New Citizens Succeed in the New World”, please add “import your real life religion into the mix” to the list. I can only hope it’s already there.
Now imagine my dilemma.
This citizen, in a browser game I have been playing for a few days, has stretched out his arm, reached past my EREPUBLIK citizen’s philosophical existence, and attempted to lay grasp to my real life heart.
He will not.
RGR, this is the last sentence I will write to you directly, because I don’t want to have any conversation about such things in an internet browser game; you leave me alone and I leave you alone. (Editor’s Note: this was actually two sentences but I fixed it with a mighty semi-colon.)
There. I wish him well. I mean him no harm. I support his decision to isolate himself in a political party of 2.
I wash my hands of him. (Editor’s note: I love this subtle invocation of the real life Pontius Pilate figure in a game narrative that deals with someone who seems to regard himself as a kind of persecuted messianic figure.)
And lest he blame you, my readers, for turning me against him, no you did not. He did that. He and he alone, by playing the underhanded "religion" trick, convinced me that all of the complaints about him are most likely accurate.
He can blame himself for the place he is in.
Before I move on, let me suggest to my reader that if I were to engage this citizen in a discussion about the christian faith, he would not know what hit him. Please never judge real life christianity based on what you think RGR might have taught you about it. He has not portrayed anything even vaguely resembling what that real life thing is about.
And that is all I will say about that.
RGR has convinced me in short order that as good as he is at orchestrating an exciting gaming narrative, he bears just enough odor of evil that he should be left alone. We all have to learn at our own pace.
If he is still reading, I hope he will consider, as a gesture of philosophical brotherly love in a theoretical universe, that the person behind his avatar be gently encouraged to share his thoughts and feelings with people in real life who are skilled in handling those thoughts and feelings with healing and care.
As for me, I’m just going to keep on publishing.
comment below
By the way, how do you like my graphics?
Comments
Your Turn: How do you like my graphics?
Solid. Love them. It’s almost like you know how to do stuff with the computers... 😂
We are all sitting behind one screen or another.
The Bioshock graphic got me.. winner, ding ding ding,.. 😃
#reddit ftw
Very nice.
good presentation. glad you've decided to avoid this guy, smart decisions
Thank you for reading.
o7
o7
Like I said last time, Krapis, you never disappoint.
Thanks for writing this. ❤️
Thank you for reading.
I need to reread this to make sure I got it all. I am still rather emotionally charged by the RGR article and need to gather my thoughts.
[removed]
[removed]
crazy thing won't let you put a semi-colon between a tl and a dr
Dear Krapis
I, better than most likely anyone else, understand what you were trying to accomplish with that interview with RGR. I see your motivation and I commiserate with you on how it turned out. I believe you failed to do what you intended.
I see the nuances in the rhetoric. I see the propose of the questions. I understand what you were trying to accomplish. What you have successfully done is open a wound that did not need to be opened. I realize that you are not responsible for my issues with that article. I realize that you had no way of knowing this would happen. I also understand that I gave you permission. I absolve you of everything because your intentions were pure.
My thinking right this moment is that you might have garnered some understanding of who RGR is and what he represents for some of us. For this I am grateful. I am happy that you found what you needed and I hope that I am right and you have garnered a wee bit of understanding from this. I think in your glee (glee is the wrong word here but I am going to use it) to get this interview you failed to realize that some might see this in a rather bad light.
You are forgiven
I accept responsibility for causing you hurt. I am sorry. Thank you for forgiving me in advance.
And I meant what I said when I wrote, "I support his decision to isolate himself..."
tl/dr - wow did I just step in it.
After seeing his responses to your questions, did you get the sense that they were self-serving, even beyond what you would normally expect in an interview?
Or to put it differently, what are the odds that an entire community of people would decide to hate someone to the irrational point where they would maintain a bunch of lies about him and archive them on a website?
His answers kept circling back to himself as the center of one conspiracy after another after another. His story is that he is the persecuted, misunderstood all-around-great-guy. He is messianic in his thinking. Yes. I could hear it in his voice but I began this little exercise determined to try and find something good. I think I did that. But I am not interested in continuing to look for any more.
you meant wrongfully persecuted. 🙂
Yes, Melissa, I definitely mean that the way you suggest.
sorry I just got lectured by someone saying that exact thing
Do you think he REALLY believes that? Or is that just the picture he paints, that all the naive newer players believe at first? To me, I see immaturity and an intelligence just enough to be dangerous but not enough to see the entire picture he is painting. Or I am being generous and he is just taking no responsibility? Maybe some of both,..
Allow me to make an admission: I made my post above WITHOUT READING YOUR INTERVIEW. That's how predictable Ajay Bruno (RJR) is. Now that I've read it, it's exactly what I expected. I was there from the start, when he first showed up on the old eUS forums attacking everyone as a bunch of foolish, socialist dupes, who didn't know anything about the way things worked. He was literally one day old in the game. And his behavior went downhill from there. He was banned multiple times from the forums for being obnoxious and threatening, all the stories about stalking are true and were documented at the time. He moved to other countries (using different accounts) and ended up getting kicked out or ostracized there, too, UK, Australia, and South Africa, as I recall. It seems that wherever he goes, he is the victim of conspiracies -- just his bad luck, I suppose. Really, I cannot stress enough that he is without a doubt the single most odious person I've ever come across online -- which is saying something. I know narcissists who would be put to shame by the extreme degree of his narcissism. I understand you are looking at it through the context of gameplaying, but unless his goal in this game was to create strife and drama, he's pretty much been a failure at it -- he certainly has not achieved any of his stated goals.
This seems to be a really good conversation to be having here in-game. The difficulty with the forum discussion is that there is a natural barrier keeping it from new players. I am learning that the forum is really great, but it also draws activity away from in-game. I can see how that has frustrated some people.
RGR exploited the separation dynamic of the forum to his advantage. He was the first person in this game who wanted to warn me who to stay away from. That was the first thing that stuck out in his communications with me. Everyone else I have met in eUSA has directed me positively toward the people and resources I've needed, including the forum and discord (both of which I am greatly in favor). But RGR directed me away from all others and toward himself.
He presented himself as the safe haven from all the evil people in this game. I recognized that as a warning sign.
Also, your last question is one I hope he will take the time to answer for himself very carefully.
Every minute spent hoping he develops any self awareness or regard for the feelings and sensibilities of others is a minute wasted. Pick lint out of your belly button, count angels dancing on the head of a pin, skip around in circles praying in Babylonian. It would be a far more productive use of your time.
I submit to the wisdom of my elders.
Okay.... You conveniently left out that I was replying to a leftist real life attack. How's mentioning non game issues.
He was *. Sad.
This has been fascinating for me to watch and not be directly involved. As a RL borrower from Zen Buddhism, I've taught myself over many difficult decades to not trust my emotions at first glance and to instead acknowledge and make note of the reaction. From there, making an active choice in acting upon the emotion or discarding it.
A wise Zen philosopher once wrote that "thoughts are like houseguests but emotions are like your children," which means, for those who didn't catch the analogy, that we, as social animals, still place great weight on emotion in the hierarchy of thought. That's fine at some level, but emotion is hard-wired and trained, and many are not fully aware of the actual triggers and environmental moments that initiate them. In another world, one might allude to PTSD as a good example of this. Online, in Internet forums, there are similar reactions and trained responses.
Thank you for this discussion over the past week. There's been more reflective philosophy regarding WHY we continue to take part in this Sisyphean experience. I think that the recent article from Aramec pretty much nails it. Thank you, again, for joining the circle of friendship that can be found if one is sincere, earnest, and open to it.
"With malice toward none, with charity for all"
Sisyphean... that's pretty much the best word for it all
I won't lie, I've used this adjective a bunch lately.
Few things in life contradict the Sisyphus mythology.
RGR just continues to teach life lessons with each interaction,.. ;p
He always had my vote for POTUS!
For him the Naiads and the Dryads mourn,
Whom the sad Echo answers in her turn;
And now the sister-nymphs prepare his urn:
When, looking for his corps, they only found
A rising stalk, with yellow blossoms crown'd.
pants = penis prison!
This recurring theme begs further inquiry
nice graphics, good choices when it comes to RGR. He is in his own special category and takes his own special bus (a short one) to his online interface gizmo. Being aware of where to place boundaries is a very good thing!
Thank you Animis. Interacting with you has been the polar opposite experience to interacting with RGR.
That is such a nice thing for you to say, thank you.
Added links to your 3 articles in the stickied Ajay thread on the eUS forums
Thank you for your work on this
o>
This somehow makes me feel humbled
o7
o7
Made my peace with Krapis ...Maybe...Left him a message
We shall see what he has to say ..
As far as you go RGR ..You can take you fake right wing Christian look at my.. better than your values because your not like me Bullshit and live a very sad life the same pathetic one you have been living in mommies basement for the last 35 years
Just remember Jesus knows when your lying and some day you will have to answer for your crimes so lie all you want here in this sorry game but your day of reckoning with him will come ...I hope for your sake it will be a long time from now because you have a lot to make up for ...
Feel free to correct anything misspelled or what ever grammar is wrong the phone does that sometimes you ass clown
Thank you for your kind message in my inbox. I look forward to our future together in the New World.