Neighbors

mjc2 wrote: ok my question here is:  Do you think an alliance has the moral right to chose its neighbors?  If so to what extent do they have the moral right to enforce that choice or is this only a choice when the alliance decides where to place its clusters? Personally i think any alliance has the moral right to chose its neighbors, if you disagree with this then you would probably disagree with most RL zoning laws because in essence all they are is a way for the community as a whole to tell an individual what they can/cannot do with their land. As for enforcement of this in game i believe that any alliance should be able to defend a city inside of their cluster if they like the city owner as a neighbor regardless of alliance that neighbor happens to be in or if they dislike the sieger so much that they cannot stand to think of that player as a neighbor. If this choice is limited to only when the alliance decides where to cluster then it is no choice at all since this is a fluid game and players tend to move around, or stop playing opening the area up to newer players after the account is deleted.

In my opinion, mjc2 has a somewhat valid argument...if.    If you actually own the land upon which your house sits.  You don't.  What you own is a limited domain.  The land belongs to the sovereign of the country or nation and it is "titled" or "chartered" to individuals or groups for specific purposes. Eminent Domain: " the right of a government or its agent to expropriate private property for public use, with payment of compensation implies that it is just for the sovereign to have the final word as to who will own the title to the land."  The compensation is not to purchase the land but redeem the title by paying the person for the value they hold in their title to the land.... which is why every real estate transaction has to have a "title search" to see if the title is "free and clear"....meaning held by the party selling it.  They are selling the title, not the land (a common misconception).  And the title is bound by rules of entitlement.....which limits the use of the land to what local zoning laws allow and is set by the sovereign of the land.  Private property" laws ...the laws we ascribe to "tangible property" are divided into that which is "transportable" and that which is "real estate."  The laws are different and the conceptions different.  If you wish to make RL an example you would have to ask, first, who owns the land of Illy.  If you are consistent you would then say all real estate of Illy is held collectively by the citizens of Illy...the players.  Then you would have to say, "who grants the rights to use the real estate of Illy" and that would be the "owners"....the players as a whole.    That we don't have a governance procedure by which we can grant some entitlements or charters but we do have game mechanics and generally accepted "don't harvest" rights, the later of which were granted by the community long before I arrived. 

A right is never "moral" or "immoral" but merely a designation of access. You have access to this or that, or to doing this or that procedure or act.  It does not obligate you to do this or that, but gives you the opportunity.  The action or accessing may or may not be moral, but the "right" is not.  But mjc2 means, I think, that one ought to have the right to choose his or her neighbors.  And I agree.  And we citizens of Illy pretty much do.  Choosing one's neighbors is a positive right --- meaning we are gaining access to an action we may have been denied before.  Choosing who will NOT be your neighbor is a negation right -- meaning you are claiming the right to negate an persons positive right (the right to be in the neighborhood).  You can encourage anybody you wish to move to your block.  But in preventing someone from doing so you are negating their right to move there.  The question before us is: do we as a community wish more to safeguard the rights of players to move where they will (within the 10 square rule of course) or grant some alliances the right to negate that right for players in certain areas?  In the end, it's our collective decision to make as we are the owners (collectively) of Illy.

So, if mjc2 thinks Illy is like rl in this matter, then he would have to conclude that the current conflict is occurring because some players have decided their right to exclude from their neighborhood out weighs others right to settle in that neighborhood.  Since Illy is owned by all of us collectively, we get to decide collectively.

AJ