I'm starting a new series of stories and tales on the nature of politics and in general, a comic review of the most widely spread social and economic falacies. Naturally, as my ideology sets so, I'm going to be satirizing from the radical liberal perspective. By any means, I do not intend to make a narrow-minded place for haters - disrespectful behaviour will not be allowed - you are all free and welcome to discuss with rationality and temperance. Thank you for kind attention, this is the first one:
Player and Cheater
Let us imagine, for some moments, that the real world we live in is now a game and we are players in it... That the Universe has pre programmed rules for the elements within it. Now lets imagine that we are playing that game as we would play any video game nowadays - we can interact with other players, pursue our own ideals and work to be successful and to thrive in this game.
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One day, in a town's daily social life, one of the players was found dead - aparently he was stabbed. The big sharp knife was still in his abdomen and his clothes soaked in blood. Everyone in that town was petrified in shock. How could a human being hurt so badly another fellow man? - was the question that everyone kept asking. The population gathered at the central square of the town and addressed one of the most charismatic and successful players, Mr. Lovejoy - he was called - about the action to take after such dreadful event.
Mr. Lovejoy assured "his people" that everything would be fine as long as he could do something about it, and declared immediately a "War on Murder and All Evils". The next day, he announced to the town a set of measures to combat the new form of crime:
"Given the recent tragic events on our beloved town and to avoid future sequels, I strongly recommend that we should create a group of guards to patrol and protect our streets from wrongdoers." - The people, still in shock and fear, rapidly applauded Mr. Lovejoy's idea. So he kept going - "Moreover, we should create a record of all knifes and blades in our town to identify future criminals, and tightly regulate blacksmiths, so they don't produce counterfeit possible weapons". The applauses kept increasing in magnitude. How could nobody have thought of that before? Such good intentions and such a practical methodology - simply amazing. Everyone sacrificed a bit of their freedom and their money to increase their security and to improve the common good. This process was repeated until the game got a titanic ammount of utilitarian rules and every new individual action could only be taken after being supervised and approved by a centralized entity.
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This is precisely the dawn of the cheater. Just like some player would pop-up the game terminal and write the cheat code, in this case, he needs consent from the other players. First he conquers the masses by taking advantage of their high militancy on some issue, triggered by some cause. Then, he proposes action on restraining the problem by centralized regulation. Finally he declares and enforces as part of a social contract to accept these "social equalizers" that are imperative to the "common good".
What are the differences then? The player identifies the natural laws, adapts, and lives by them. The cheater is always finding ways to make laws and rules to solve every problem he faces. The player worries about his own choices and how he can make choices even better. The cheater worries about making his choices international. The player is independent. The cheater wants others to depend on him. The player's main purpose is to overcome the game. The cheater's main concern is to transform the game into his game. We all have the player and the cheater inside of our own mind, they may sometimes look alike, but the day to pick the one we will endorse will come.
This game is not so far from reality after all. In our country, region or even city we find the cheaters and the players of the XXI century, the looters and the creators.
To wrap up I subscribe with the inevitable question: What cheaters do you identify in your society?
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