“When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.” -- Benjamin Franklin

The new land barons

The SHF won in the last election with 10 votes. Of these ten voters, four had the express stated goal of seceding their own pieces of Aytos from Aytos to form sovereign and independent states (T, Pitoya, Static, and Torche). And another three moved to Aytos temporarily, specifically so they could vote to make this happen, and they left once it was accomplished (Monkey, Rykleos, and zombie Egx).

This issue hasn't been talked about much, but in fact it is the single reason for straw that broke the camel's back for Monkey resulting in the Monkey invasion. If there was never a secession issue with Axe Island, Monkey would never have moved to Aytos to take sides in the first place. And once he arrived, no matter how much we drove him nuts he wouldn't have left without accomplishing that one thing. He had full control of our government for a month, and he talked about a new constitution but the one and only thing he did make sure to accomplish was granting these secessions in a way that can't be taken back.

My purpose here is not to say the election or these secessions were invalid or illegal. It's to observe that the political majority in Aytos values participating as citizens within the state less than it values looting the state. We've hit the tipping point Ben Franklin was talking about. In keeping with these values the majority bloc has literally voted themselves and their homes and property out of Aytos, and rejected the notion that their homes or property should be governed by the same set of laws or be subject to the same justice system as the rest of us.

The problem for the rest of us

The worst problem this presents for Aytos is that it has created a political inequality. I'm not talking about "Torche owns an island and I don't"; that would be a material inequality, not a big deal and not a threat to Aytos at all. The political problem is: "Torchylvanians can vote about laws governing Aytians, but not the other way around". And that's a huge deal. Because this makes it a liability to be an Aytian instead of a Torchylvanian (or a MineKopingian, or a Statistician, or whatever). A society can't work if half the people are subject to the laws and the other half are immune in some sense. That creates a political instability which must resolve itself somehow.

There are two ways it can resolve itself. One way is separation; i.e. if the ancap barons left the republican-statists to do their thing, the republican-statists could build a state on their own and mutually agree to give it sovereignty over themselves, leaving the barons out of it. But I don't see this happening for us. Our new ancap land barons are choosing to retain their Aytos citizenships, and they are continuing to influence and participate in Aytos politics just as our constitution entitles them to. So there is no realistic option for a separation so that a republican-statism can be reasserted. The other way to rebalance things is: "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em". Over time, more individuals in Aytos will inevitably seek to join the privileged class by carving off their own personal sovereignties. (And who can object to that, now that the precedent has been established for us to consider it a "right"?)

Bottom line: Unless a bunch of people suddenly and comprehensively change their minds about the value of belonging to a greater society versus the value of personal independence, (which they won't ever, even if only because I just suggested they should), Aytos will become further balkanized over time, and will eventually end up as some sort of ancap city.

The future of the government

Under these conditions that are developing, will our republican government be able to exercise meaningful power to guarantee rights for its citizens? Because that is its founding purpose as stated in the preamble and elaborated on in Article I, so if it can't do those things it has no purpose. I would say that it already can't. Clearly the majority bloc running our government doesn't even believe the government should be providing security or protecting rights, for if they did they wouldn't have seceded their homes from Aytos in the first place.

This leaves the government with one meaningful power for the time being, city planning. People may feel that city planning is important and worth fighting over now, but I wonder how long such a thing can remain important. Because if the new "Aytos dream" is not to participate in a city on equal terms with other citizens, but to carve off personal sovereign feifs, city planning kind of stops being a thing before long.

Why I even play the game (or used to, anyway)

The ancap "good ol' boy" informal personal networking model of security is inherently corrupt and unequal. It can't be any other way, because personal relationships and access to influential friends are inherently unequal and biased. The noisy people and the "cool" people win that game, others lose, and that's not justice. The only way for justice to happen in a society is for laws to be placed above the entire society, and to be applied though a system that follows impartial rules that have nothing to do with personal relationships.

This is why I've always hoped some part of civcraft could produce a legal system with enough force behind it locally, so that it could become a truly functional alternative to ancapism for players. I think if anybody managed to build this, their city would massively attract players and become a new Columbia. Because who wouldn't prefer living under that instead of under world police hegemons. But building this would require starting with a critical mass of players who support that goal. Aytos may have had that once, briefly, before the PILF crisis, but now it's pretty much the exact opposite of that and it has no way out that I can see.

So I'm done. I don't want to be a part of Aytos any more, there's nothing in it for me now. If I start playing civcraft regularly again it will be somewhere else. Enjoy your private islands, folks. I really mean it. I don't care about the hostility toward me, I think civcraft is a big game with a big world and there should be plenty of room for each player to get what they want out of it. I won't ruin any more of your dreams. (Well, I'll ruin your ability to make me a scapegoat for all your failures, but that's all.)

TLDR: Aytos is now the Balkans. I am taking T's sincere and prescient advice to GTFO. Best wishes for those who remain, I hope all your wildest dreams come true. When you looted my Meat Market M's you got all my gold already so please don't tear down my house until I can get my stuff out, kthxbai.